


The lullaby of the woods

by moonfox281



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Elf Dick, Eventual Romance, Happy Ending, Human King Bruce, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Orc Jason, Orc/Elf relationship, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-14
Updated: 2019-11-15
Packaged: 2021-01-30 11:24:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 22,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21427432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonfox281/pseuds/moonfox281
Summary: Winds from north beaconed early snow by late midnight. Lights begun to shut down on the kingdom of humans they stayed. Like two lone rangers left of a forsaken empire, they walked the present while lived of the past. But for once in many years, Jason felt at ease watching the moon when the first snow fell.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson/Jason Todd
Comments: 18
Kudos: 159





	1. Jason

Jason always enjoyed watching the sun go down through the side of the mountains. As light faded away through the blind of leaves down to the horizon beginning the start of the end, birds made no sound, only the winds rustled conveying chronicles of the trees and the lands, leaving the night a dusky hollow of fright and mystery to lesser men of a greater world. 

He could sense everything, the bigger animals coming out from their dents for a night hunt, water source running through rocks and dirt, horse shoes of forest wanderers. 

Laid on the ground watching the sky turning its cover, Jason knew this was it. He was bleeding. He couldn’t even feel himself bleeding, but he knew he was. The pain numbed through skin, muscles. His throat dry, his limbs weak. 

A lost battle. His fate was settled.

Jason felt his strength slowly retreated from the body that no longer listened to his command. Through the heavy lids and blurry night sky, he faintly saw a hint of light, a shadow as white as the glow of full moon, and as bright as the stars. 

And then, everything went dark.

Jason jerked awake after that, knew not of the air, space, and time. 

Pain crawled over his body, scratched his skin, tearing his muscle. He touched his abdomen, saw the white bandage neatly wrapped around thick grey skin. He remembered blades cutting through his flesh, remembered himself fighting a crowd, remembered himself losing despite winning. And then everything went dark.

He was supposed to be out. But this space, with sunlight pooled down stoned ground and draped on gold pillar, ivy and roses curled around large framed windows, white blinds floating in the wind, it was very much far from his expectation of death. 

Jason reached for his axe, fear rose when found nothing. He grunted sitting up, hating the daylight for weaken his vision. 

“So you’ve awaken.” 

Jason snapped his head back and caught someone by the door. No, even with his weaken vision in this fucking sunbath room, he could still make out the slender body in water silk, gold jewelries and pointy ears poking through waist long hair. A fucking elf. 

“What the fuck!” Jason kicked over the blanket, stomping to his feet only to fall flat on his knees like a axed tree. His wounds screamed, all of them. There were so many of them. Jason didn’t know he had so many of them.

“Good lord, you tore your stitches.”

Elven kind hadn’t been seen for decades, since after the Great War, and even before that, they had lived separate from others, clustered on the highest mountains or the greatest wood of forgotten lands. 

“Where am I you bastard?”

“Calm down.” He spoke in a tired tone like Jason was a disappointment, fucking elf. “You put up quite an energy for someone who took one step through the gate of Death.”

“You understand me. How do you understand me?” Jason remembered speaking in Orkish, not the common tongue.

“I learn. We all learn. My kind master many languages in this common world. Orkish is no exception.”

Jason huffed. “So I’m in elven den.”

“No, wouldn’t that be a fortunate.” The elf chuckled and moved close to the table in the middle of the room. “If you’re in my home, you wouldn’t have a lesser room than this.”

“Just tell me where the fuck I am.” 

“Such rudeness, even though I healed you.” 

Jason swallowed back his tongue. “You healed me?”

“Human medical understanding wouldn’t be able to pull your body back to life. I fixed you, by my own hands.”

There was supposed to be a thank you. But fuck him if Jason was about to express gratitude to a fucking elf. 

The elf moved toward Jason’s place, looking down on him with a bowl of water in hands. If Jason’s arms had any strength and didn’t slack against the stone tile, he would have pulled on his skirt and made him fall. 

“Get up. I can’t clean your wounds on the floor.”

“I don’t need your fucking healing.”

“You’ll be coughing blood if I don’t reseal your wounds.”

“Keep your pretty hands to your pretty self, pointy ears princess.”

For that, all Jason got back was silence. He thought he had it good, finally shutting the elf up and giving them some distance. But when the elf turned on his heels and put the bowl down, he yanked open the blinds in the room, one by one of each window, letting the bright white sun in, blinding Jason’s vision.

He groaned in pain when his eyes were abused, curled on the floor and stuck his wrapped naked back to the cold stone.

He spoke something in Elvish, the language Jason knew not. 

“Fucking leaf lickers!”

Everything spun. Even with his eyes squeezed shut, Jason felt the ground turning, shaking, pulling his body down and down. 

Just like that, he went under again.

When Jason woke again, he was pretty sure of his surrounding and whose ass he needed to kick. Unfortunately, the elf was nowhere to be seen, neither was his axe.

Jason pulled himself up more carefully this time, remembering the cutting pain on his abdomen and everywhere else. It was darker this time, the sun had gone weak out the window. It must be close to dawn. 

His senses could work their best at sun down. He needed to flee before that elf came back, and he needed to find his axe. 

He moved off the bed, frowned when the mattress sunk and reformed under his weight. Such puny human thing, Jason grew up sleeping on rocks and debris, his skin thick enough to not get cut by sand and pointy edges. 

He moved to the window, squinting his eyes to look out. He wasn’t much up high, three stories, jumping down would be just a normal everyday walk if he wasn’t wounded. 

Down below, he saw civilization. Humans, lots of humans. They were carrying things, moving, talking, riding horses and playing with their metals. Colorful little creatures. 

Jason was at their citadel. 

He slumped down the nearest chair, washing a hand over his face. How exactly long was he out? Last thing he remembered, he was in the forest, laying between leaves and dirt, bleeding out. He couldn’t make it out if he was this close to the land of these full-lings.

It would be hard to slip out at this point. He seemed to be in some noble place, with view grand enough to see the whole city, and yard grand enough to have guards wielding steels. Not to mention, Jason was an open show. At 8 feet tall, he was a walking tower to these minions, with skin color of clay and two fangs poked out through the fold of his lips. 

Humans were delicate creatures, easy to panic, easy to feel threatened, and for that, they were aggressive. 

There was a herd of them, and only Jason. 

The only way out was in. 

Jason slipped out the door, ears on alert for the slightest sound. The lights were dying, torches were on, his senses reached their peaks. He could hear them from miles away, smelled them. The burn of their torches, the food they made. 

They always smelled like food, even their skin smelled edible. 

Strange enough, there were no guards around. It didn’t take long for Jason to find his way to all the lines in the castle.

A freaking castle. Out of all people out there to scoop up his bloody body in the middle of horseshit nowhere in the forest, it had to be an elf living in a human castle. 

“You’ve let your heart work before your head again.”

He heard sounds. Human tongue. 

Jason cringed. He had followed the dark, far from where the torches lighted and the smell of living in this castle. It was cold and quiet here, surrounded by brick and stone. 

“And you always let your head do the working.”

Another voice, smaller, wispier, like night wind blew through the leaves. 

There seemed to be only two of them in some room further ahead of the hallway. Jason could deal with them. Two was better than the rest of the whole castle. 

“I don’t like this, not at all.”

“Don’t talk to me like that. You may be my friend, but I’m just about a hundred years older than your grandparents. I know what I’m doing.”

“It is because you’re my friend that I’ve fought for your stay in this land.”

There was silence. Jason held his breath.

“Riots are forming. Small, ineffective, containable. But it’s a sign.”

“They have forgotten I’ve fought along their kings and legends in worse eras. Humans are such immoral creatures.”

“You live among us, you understand the situation. Yet, you brought back a creature. An orc, for god’s sake.”

“He was bleeding, dying, covered in wounds from human weapons.”

“He’s an orc.”

“The fact that he’s an ancient creature with more advanced physical abilities than you doesn’t put a penalty on his head.”

Jason had lost his drive to leave. There was only one orc wandering in this kingdom and that was Jason. There was no way Jason would be leaving before he got to the end of this. 

“The orc will be in my care. He’s my responsibility. If anything happens, I shall take care of it myself.”

“Hey you!”

Jason snapped back. Shit, he was so into the conversation and missed out the moving of a guard.

“What… what the hell are you?”

Fuck this shit.

Jason roared back at his face. The guard gasped and dropped his weapon, shaking like a straw in the wind. 

When Jason turned his neck, he flinched. A blade as sharp and bright as the moon edge pushed at his neck. Deep blue eyes stared at his face, sucking his soul in. 

“You.”

The elf retreated his blade back to his sleeve, twirling that dangerous thing between his fingers like a toy. He pushed pass Jason, enough sheer force to make him understand he wasn’t pleased of being eavesdropped. 

“Retreat to your place. He’s my property.”

Property? What in the fuck?

“My lord…”

“I said retreat.”

Without another word, the guard picked up his sword, scrambled to his legs, and ran back to where he had first come from with no more than a glance through the shoulder.

Jason now noted the figure standing by the elf, a man wearing a crown and white fur cape. Of fucking course he had to be a king. 

“Get back to your room, now.”

“I don’t listen to your order, elf.”

“I’ve said it nicely.”

The elf suddenly pressed on Jason’s wounded abdomen, sending him grunting and panting and falling down the floor on his knees.

“Fucking shit! You fucking little piece of shit!” He growled, punched his fist through the stones on the floor. “I’ll kill you. I’ll bite your fucking head off and feed the rest to direwolves.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

Jason spat down his feet. He grinned when a glare was sent back, drilling through his head. 

“Get back to your room by yourself, or would you rather be dragged by horses.”

Jason was about to spit back another cheeky comeback, but the white blade came back out from the elf’s sleeve, shining at his face like branding a threat right on his forehead.

The king drew out his longsword. Jason heard iron feet stamping on the stone floor right behind his back. 

Fuck.

“Get up, please.” 

Jason was never good at following orders. But he got up anyway.

* * *

“You’re one stinky old bastard.”

The elf rolled his eyes, moving over to remove Jason’s bandage. 

“I don’t recall anyone has ever commented about my scent before.”

Jason snorted. “Right, maybe you don’t stink.” He tilted his head. “But you are old. Really really old.”

He dragged the words out, resting his legs on the chair, tilting his chin up as looking down on the elf caressing the wound around his stomach like a male watching his bitch sucking his cock. He knew he was dancing on the elf’s patience, and he enjoyed it. 

“How old are you, exactly? Five decades? A millennium? I know you guys don’t die… well, you do if in a battle field.”

A glare at first, but the elf breathed out an answer in the end.

“246.”

“Ah, still a baby.”

A glare again. 

“Tell, what a baby elf like you doing in human ground. Heard you guys moved all up to some magic place, leaving this shit hole behind and never coming back.”

“You talk a lot.” The elf mumbled. “Your wounds have healed up nicely. Either by my medicine, or by your healing ability.”

“Orcs heal fast. If we don’t, we’ll all be dead. We live a short life, unlike you white-skins.”

The elf was right, his wounds had all healed up nicely, way faster than his normal healing speed. Definitely the elf medicine, but like hell Jason was going to admit it outloud.

“Why do you choose to live among these mugglings?”

“That’s quite offensive to their nature.”

“That’s what they’re good at, isn’t it. Little brains twirling like wheels and speedy limbs. They have nothing but number and greed.”

The elf huffed, rolled his eyes and shook his head. Jason hated when he did that, like treating like Jason knew less but still trying to be smart. That was what he hated about elves, always so arrogant and acted like they knew everything, which was painfully truth. 

If you lived that long and still knew more or less than the mind of a dwarf, it was better dead than alive. 

“So you left your pack, huh? Isn’t that peachy? Humans don’t like creatures like us. Even ones as highly as you.”

“You make lots of questions today.”

“And you’ve barely answered any.”

The elf only smiled. The air fell back to silence. Jason hated it when it was silent. He didn’t like not knowing what was going on.

“What’s your name?”

Another huff. 

“Richard.”

Jason snorted. “That’s a human name. Did the king give you that?”

“No, his grandfather did.”

“So what’s your real name?”

“Ehrendil.”

“Is that a last name or a first name.”

“A first name. Ehrendil Liaveryre is what I’m called.”

“Never understand how you brush monkeys spell all those weird ass long names.”

“I told you mine. It’d be polite if you do the same.”

Jason was laughing, until his laugh turned dead under that smile. He suddenly felt cornered. He didn’t know why. 

“Name’s Jason.”

“That’s also a human name. Should I ask?”

“Over my dead body.”

“Alright, how about your birth name, in Orkish.”

Jason sucked in a breath, looked out the window, which had carefully been blinded. 

“Todd.”

“Todd?”

“What do you expect? Orcs don’t name fancy names that twist the tongue like you guys. We name shortly, easy to remember, easy to command, easy to forget.”

The elf chuckled out loud. “I’ll call you Jason then.”

“Why?”

“You tell me that name first. It must mean something to you.”

Jason stayed silent. Not because he didn’t want to spit back something sneaky. But because he didn’t know what to say.

So instead, he stayed quiet and watched the elf washed his well closed wounds.


	2. Richard

When Richard found him, he must admit, it was mostly pity that had driven him to lace ropes on three horses and drag the orc back all the way from the wood to the castle. Since then, Bruce had never stop complaining about his heedless decision. 

To be honest, Bruce never stopped complaining about anything. From the war around the border of the kingdom, the greedy lords who fought for power and shied from battles, to vermin that destroyed crops and winter stocks, the bad seasons that sent fishermen sailing far only to comeback with half-full nets. Bruce had his reasons to worry and act like a complete arse half of the time. But the other half was that he had his way of whispering all his miseries to the stone walls and made Dick listened to them. 

There was once a time when humanity listened to his guidance. They once knew what endless prosperous was, back when the fresh bond between humans and elves was still cherished. 

Now, with his kind away and gone, these creatures had lost their way of spreading their wings, dreaming of flying when not yet understand they hadn’t gathered enough feathers. 

“My lord.” 

Richard nodded and shooed the guard away, crushing the letter of yet another disposal of the houses up North. 

The kingdom was dividing. Based on Bruce’s little reaction to that fact, he seemed to be expecting it rather than working on a solution for the matter. 

Richard had always known Bruce was much better suit a commander than a leader.

“They said no?”

Richard didn’t answer back his knight. Wally could read through his silence and made a guess.

“They can’t be serious.”

“You can tell that to Lord Hubbard of Waerham Hold. Consider how he had accentuated his stand very clearly in the letter.” 

“Maybe you can change their minds by an edge of loyalty. The Norths are stubborn as goats, but they are bound to faithfulness.”

“They’re loyal to their King. Not me.” Richard threw the letter into the fireplace and splashed what was left of his wine cup to boost the flame. “When the King they named does little to stop their way, what can an elf like me do?”

“You’re angry.”

Richard huffed. “I’m frustrated.”

“Take a break. Go down the field. Wave a couple of swords. It’s been a while since I saw you moved like the old time. Maybe it will do some help.”

“Your men don’t like my fighting.”

“My men don’t like when they lose.” 

They stared at each other for a moment. Wally had stepped in dangerously close. He smiled down on Richard, the kind of smile Richard knew he wouldn’t take no as an answer.

“Fine. But you shall be my opponent.”

Wally laughed, lips spread wide. 

“It’d be my pleasure.” 

Wally was right about taking a break. It did help. Even though human weapons weight too heavy for his liking, dragging down his body, limiting his speed, Richard enjoyed the air brush through his skin, the feel of being up high, of swinging and dancing around his opponents. 

He knew Wally’s men didn’t like it when he fought like playing  _ and _ winning. Men of shield and sword, in the end, had nothing but their prides. 

Wally had stepped up into the game half round. He was the only opponent Richard truly enjoyed. He was one of the best.

“I think I’ve had enough for today.”

Wally laughed, waving his sword to get off the dirt. “Why so soon? We’re barely warming up.”

“Your men are watching.”

“So? You’re worthy of the attention.”

Richard snorted. Wallace the Red Knight. If he could run his mouth as fast as his feet carried, or half as cheeky as he was with Richard, he could have got himself a nice lady.

“Let them stare, Richie. They’ll learn from their resentment that having a gold sigil on their chest doesn’t make them the best of the best.”

“You have a sigil on your chest too.”

“And I acknowledge my deficiency. You’ve kicked my balls more than a couple of times.”

Richard couldn’t help but laugh. Wally might be many lifetimes younger than him, but he was a good friend Dick couldn’t replace in many lifetimes. 

They had forgotten their way in the fight, kicking dirt with their boots and wondering when the first snow came when a maiden screamed and dashed her ways in between the soldier on training ground. 

It was a strange sight, maidens didn’t normally like passing this route on their own, men could be assholes and horny men could be beasts. But the maiden had run right into the chest of one soldier, sweat rolled of her skin and wet her back as she fumbled broken meaningless sound on her own tongue.

From where she had run from, Jason came down step by step on the staircase, marching through crowd and horses, pushing away carriages on his path like they weighted nothing. 

“Ah, here’s your monster.” Wally rested his sword on his shoulder as he watched Jason slowly made his way toward them despite the eyes burning on his back. “He’s huge. How did you get him all the way up there?”

“Five men and a cart.”

Jason loomed over them, looking straight at Richard, nostrils flaring. Around them, soldiers pulled swords out of their covers and got ready. Even Wally got his hand tighten around the handle of his sword, no longer smiling. 

“I thought I told you to stay in the room?”

“You left me bored to death.” Jason barked. “I’m not a damn dog to be chained down to one place.”

“I don’t chain you to one place. I waited for your wounds to heal.”

Jason rolled his eyes. Without a word, he lifted up his shirt, showing off the fresh scar ran across his hard pack abdomen. Nearby, women gasped and hid their eyes away, even men turned their faces. Richard couldn’t help but mumble in Elvish.

“They healed.”

“You don’t say.” Richard looked away too. The orc might have no shame in showing off his body, but everyone else did. “What is it that you need?”

“Air.” His eyes down the weapon ragged and the soldiers around. “And my axe.”

“Air you might have. But your axe you couldn’t.”

Jason glared back. “Why?”

Richard didn’t have to answer him. He knew why. They stared at each other long enough for Wally to come standing by his side, ready for the worst. 

“Fine,” Jason finally leaned back, spitting down the ground. “But you’ll have to let me fucking do something.”

He stomped his feet and twisted. Giant arms swung in the air, shoulders rolled back. He kept twitching his head, popping joint on his neck. Winds rumbled through his windpipe, sending out low growls of a hunting animal. 

Jason was right. He needed to move, exercise, get his body into working. Orcs weren’t like humans, their bodies were made for battle and training. 

“Alright,” Richard went for the weapon rag and picked up an axe. “How about a match?”

Jason quirked his eyes. Next to him, Wally squeezed on his shoulder, worry covered his face like a shadow. 

“It’s alright. It’s not the first time I fight an orc. It won’t be the last.”

Despite his words, Wally stared at him wide eyed, nostrils flaring, a hand tight on his sword. He darted his eyes back and forth between Dick and the orc, jaw clenched tight. 

He let go finally with great reluctance. “You go out when I tell you to.”

Richard huffed back and walked toward Jason. The orc looked down on him, half amused, half surprised. 

“You sure, elf?” He breathed out a laugh. “If I fight, I won’t need this tiny toy to break you.” He picked the axe up from Richard only to flick it down the ground a couple feet away. 

“Do it your way.”

Jason laughed. He stood back, grinding his bare feet down the humid soil, breaking his knuckles. 

Richard signaled Wally to pull his men back and clear the space. He walked around in circle, watching Jason stood his ground and popped bones. 

“You think too highly of yourself, elf. Your kind always do.”

“Hardly, you just set yours too low.”

If it came to being provoked, Orc and Dwarf hardly beat each other. They both had skulls thicker than mountain goats, with nerves as fragile as battle moose. Dick was merely playing when Jason grunted and roared. 

Meathead. 

He strode over, feet tromped down the ground, kicking dirt up. He was too heavy, too slow. Richard waited once he was near, arms opened wide, fist came down. He bent in half, letting Jason’s arm swung above him and hit the back of his sword on his bicep when coming back up. 

“One.” He grinned, head tilted. “Pay attention.”

Around them, soldiers cheered. Jason’s face twisted. He tried grabbing Richard again, skin merely grazed over the fabric of his gown. He kept making sounds, breathing like dragons, making tracking his movement too easy.

“Two.” Dick taped his blade down Jason’s thigh. “Three.” His calf. “Four.” His shoulder. “Five.” 

The more Jason tried to grab him, the more Dick counted his kill. The more the number grew, the louder Jason became. 

“Fucking elfing.”

“Six.”

“Enough!”

He caught Dick’s sword with his bare hand. For a moment, Dick froze. 

The crowd went silent. Jason grinned, but it was only a slightest moment. Dick let go of his sword, using Jason’s broad body as a steady ground for his feet, jumping up, kicking him in the face hard enough he stumbled back a few steps.

“Seven.”

Jason fixed his jaw, huffing in Dick’s surprise. “You know how to fight.”

“I had the impression that you knew.”

“I didn’t.” He changed his standing, grinned. 

It was Richard’s turn to frown. Something about the air around the orc changed. He punched his fist into his palm, hard enough it felt like the rock around could rumble. 

“But now I do.”

He strode over, three times faster. Dirt flew under his feet, trembled under his mighty weight. Richard saw his first move, but merely dodged the next blow. Between steps and turns that fit between punches and blows, he realized Jason was only serious now. 

Dick fell on his knees, slid down the ground between Jason’s legs and picked back up his sword. 

They wasted no time dancing back into the fight. Air splashed on their face, cold from the ice of approaching winter, humid from the leftover of the morning fog. Puff of airs spread out in space, ghosted over Dick’s parted lips, hovered around Jason’s long fangs, ghosts of the clear evident of their full-might in the game. 

It had been so long since Richard felt this alive. Wave of energy crawled under his skin, his blood rushed in his veins, pumping his racing heart. For decades, his body had searched for this thrill of a fight. 

Jason was strong. Stronger than most orcs Richard had fought. Fast and witty, he moved brilliant in comparison to most of his race. Before he knew, Richard had found himself stop counting. 

“You’re strong, for a he-elf.”

“You’re fast, for an orc.”

Somewhere between the insults, he caught Jason grinning again. Not the kind of malice that the hunger for blood and crushed bones brought, but the kind that was triggered amusement. 

Jason still swung his arms like bringing down old trees in the dark wood, but between the show of his strength and the chase for Richard’s gown tail, he kept his teeth bared into big bright smiles. 

Richard enjoyed the cheer of soldiers and maidens each time he flung in the air, turned on one leg on Jason’s skin, hand standing to swing his limbs like a weapon. Somewhere in the crowd, he knew Wally was watching with great pride. 

“You’re fast.” Jason said, somewhere between trying to grab on Richard as he jumped on him again to punch him in the face. “But I’ve fought elves before too.”

He suddenly pulled on Richard’s hair, slamming him down the ground. 

In a blink, Richard sensed Wally pulled out his sword and stepping a foot ahead.

“Your hair is always too long for combat.” He picked Richard up with god knew what attention in mind. “I can just pull your head off with it.” 

Dick kicked on his chest, sending them both down. Jason rolled on his back, fist raised and punching down like thunders of summer storm. 

His skin landed only a hair away from Dick’s ear, the grounded shook and cracked, dirt flew up on Richard’s cheek. 

“I win.” He grunted, or not. His voice so low, rolling in his throat and out from his lips like rocks down the foot of a mountain. Their faces hovered merely inches away from each other. Richard could catch the golden amber of his eyes. 

Jason grinned again, almost like a routine, only to stop midway when his neck bobbed at the action. He slowly looked down to his skin, frozen. Richard’s blade press to his skin, not too hard to cut, merely grace on the thick clay skin that he wouldn’t have realized without moving. 

A quick death. Unexpected. 

“Eight.”

Richard whispered, knowing his breath hit would hit the orc’s skin. Jason stared back into his eyes, quiet. 

He looked somehow… different. Hard to put it into words. How surprising, even with all the years he had lived, all the things he had mastered, all the languages he had learned, Richard still couldn’t put it into words.

“Oi,” Another sword came down by Jason’s neck, threatened to cut his cheek. “The game’s over.”

Wally looked down on them without a sign of emotion. He must have turned angry when Jason did not leave from his friend’s body. 

“Get off from him,  _ now _ .”

Jason snorted, but stood up. 

Wally stepped over, glaring behind his back as the orc left, pulling Richard back on his feet. 

“That was dangerous.”

“It was under my will.”

“He could have hurt you.”

Richard looked down the sword in his hand, then back to his friend.

“I could have killed him.” 

The grounded felt wet beneath his feet. Air turned warmer when he stopped moving. Like the rhythm of horseshoes under the orders of their riders, Richard’s heart beat against his chest fiery.

He looked down once again of where he and Jason had landed. The dirt was splashed and ground cracked, evident of the orc mighty strength, one he could have chosen to cast down on the elf, but aimed not to.

“I’ve soiled my gown.” was all he gave Wally before turning on his feet, throwing the sword down, and striding back into the castle. 


	3. Jason

“Your skin heals quick.”

Richard touched on scars that had turned stiff and changed color only through days. His ancient blue eyes glistered of light when admiring the close wounds on Jason’s bare skin.

“As expected from an orc.” He whispered.

“Hey,” Jason caught his wrist before his hand made up further on his chest. “I’m not a plaything. Have some restrain.”

The elf stared back at him, had Jason frozen on his action. It wasn’t just the color of newly bloomed bluebells from the waterfall in the moonlight, nor the dark, thick hair that framed over the watery mirage of those eyes like reflected willows on lake surface, but also the enchanting delicacy of grace and wisdom that blew wide and fiery. Many had said elves could enchant people with one look. 

He swallowed, felt his tongue went numb the longer the elf looked into him. 

“You’ve never been a plaything to me, nor shall you ever be.” Richard spoke. His voice whispery like the winds through leaves. 

Jason must be foolish, but he trusted those words without a mere thought. 

“Have you been eating well?”

Jason scoffed, letting go of Richard’s hand. “Define well?”

“The maidens said you ask for a horse this morning.”

“That would have been lunch if they didn’t run away.”

“I’ve forgotten how exquisite orc’s appetite is to nourish this body.”

“Is that an insult or you’re just being weird?”

The elf only smiled back. Jason hated when he did that. Jason hated when he couldn’t understand him, which was the case for most of the time.

Jason wounds had healed, all of it, but his axe was still missing. He couldn’t leave without his axe. So his plan was to get around in the castle long enough until he could sneak and find his weapon. A giant thing like that shouldn’t be hard to seek once he had gotten himself used to the routes around. 

Every day, the elf came by his room to check on the old wounds. He went by himself most of the time. In some occasions, little women followed him carrying fabrics and buckets of herbal water. They feared Jason greatly, sticking tight to the back of Richard’s elven gown like find comfort and assurance from their lord. Most of the time, the elf ignored it, but more than once had he tested their courages by having them washing Jason’s body in his watch. 

Jason wouldn’t say, humans tasted awful. No orc would eat them willingly if there was still another option in the food chain, yet this kind acted like they were a walking feast craved by most of creatures in this world. And such a big world it was. 

“So you’re friends with the king.”

“I’ve tended 3 generations of the blood line.”

“Strange,” Jason huffed. “Not that I judge, but these creatures don’t usually let outsiders in for a long time.” Human are wary, scared, and greedy. They didn’t like the unknown, more so of other kinds that were above them in aspects. 

“Consider myself lucky.”

“Or unlucky. They want you out now, don’t they?” 

Richard stopped moving. His eyes landed on Jason, still for a long moment. 

“It is both unwise and discourteous of you to decide to eavesdrop on me.”

“Really? What you’re going to do about that?”

A mumbled Elvish sentence. Jason would have spat back an insult in Orkish if he knew some Elvish, or if the elf didn’t understand Orkish. 

Fucking leaf licker. 

“You’re cunning, elf, I’ll give you that. Speaking in riddles and shielded from the chaos of the world, your kind might know many of this earth but the hearts of the mortals are easy to turn. Men are weak and bear the mix of all the weakest of beings. They carry no wisdom and fairness of the Elves, nor the honor and dignity of warriors like we Orcs.”

“You speak as you have had a fair share of humanity at worst.”

Jason clicked his tongue and looked away. 

He thought of the past and present again. Things that were, and things that have yet to become. He felt vulnerable to the thoughts, felt anger coil and consume his inside when facing this weakness of himself in front of an elf.

“I haven’t made my fair share of humanity at worse. Humanity had always been like this. You just turn a blind eye on it, elf. You knew they would be the doom of all, yet let it be. You speak fancy, act above and yet, look at you now. The peace you seek are just from a cowardly path you call righteous. You elves, in the end, are all sanctimonious treefools.”

“Are you blaming all faults of the past on me?” 

“The ending of our world now, was aided by you elven.”

Jason grunted. But as quick as the speed anger had carry to invade him, a shadow casted down the elf’s eyes pulling him back from further furry. From a presence of light and solace, the air turned around Richard. Darkness spread from his back, cold and poisoned. 

It ended just as swiftly as it came, those blues turned back to light, the shadow disappeared, a soft sigh exhaled between parted lips, having Jason bewildered to the core. 

“It seems your judgements have been clouded by the hatred and spite for the blood I own. Letting your assessment willed by these ill senses, is it really your power to cast the dye and speak of the know not?”

Jason should feel angry, he really should. Despite the words of his mind, he felt anxiety crawled through his body while facing the mind of immortal. Jason could not fight back in reason, and the darkness he had witnessed held him back further. 

They were still in the middle of a staring contest when a knock came on the door. It came again after none decided to answer.

“My lord.” A man’s voice.

“What is it?”

“The King requested to see you.”

Jason rolled his eyes, laying back on his bed with an arm on his face because the damn noon was killing him. 

“You heard him, the human king is asking for you. Go, running after him, if you have not yet called human your king.”

Jason shouldn’t have spoken. Yet he did. He couldn’t help it. His tongue squirmed back into his throat and stuck there as a silver blade landed right in between his parting legs, sinking deep through the mattress of feathers and cotton, merely inches from his balls. 

Richard, who had crawled upon him quick and silent like shadow of the moon down the land it conquered. Blackness of hair pooled down from his shoulder, landed on Jason’s skin like soft water of fountain as he leaned down, closing their space. Eyes of holy and sorcery, of sky and ocean burned through Jason, grabbing on his soul and jerking it out for a conversation. 

For a moment, Jason thought he saw Death within his own eyes.

“Be grateful.” Richard whispered, his breath hot and scented of rain and flowers. “I’ve gifted you food. I’ve gifted you a roof. I’ve gifted you a passage when Death came asking. It would be no predicament of mine to retrieve all those from you.”

He leaned back, taking away the warmth Jason didn’t know he had gotten used too. Standing back up and setting his feet, white gown sweeping down the stones and steps after steps, the elf flowed like water through rocks and stones, soft and elegant as if a force of the holy. 

Another smile, a fair goodbye that meant good before the door opened and closed, yet, Jason couldn’t help but shiver. 

Fucking leaf licker.

* * *

“These men are unworthy of our kingdom. I’ve got no reason to hold them back from their leaving.”

“Unworthy or not, they are allies from elder times when your ancestors brought these lands united. It will come the time when their aids are needed.”

Jason knew eavesdropping wasn’t such an honorable thing to do, yet, here he was, sitting on top of one of the greatest tower, watching the moon while munching on the old bread he took no joy in digesting, listening to the elf bickering with the king like they were ready for war. 

Perhaps they were, and wouldn’t that be nice. 

“The edges are weakening. Our borders are crossed every time these lords make a wrong alliance with a wrong force. Their oaths of loyalty have been broken the day they failed to remember the value of the throne they serve. Our kingdom would only grow stronger without their presence.”

“You’re young, Bruce. There are matters I well know you can handle with your strength and foresight, but this is different. If you take this leaf, the faith of the kingdom would be at risk.”

There was silence. Jason didn’t know why he had chosen this roof to watch the night, yet when he caught voices, he had chosen to stay. The moon was magnificent tonight, big and white and glowing. Many stars made their appearance, blinking lights no gem could ever compare. 

Down below, the story was headless, unfolded. What he picked on was a part of something greater, as he had seen the light in this tower shone for a good time before moving here. Yet, he could make a good guess of what they were speaking of. 

“The council has decided. They agreed… on the terms I’ve written.”

With darkness covered the sky, Jason’s senses were at their best potential. He smelled the fog of night, the melted snow down the ground hundreds of feet beneath, the burning oil of candles in the room, and the smoking woods by the fireplace inside. He heard the winds blew, heard guards marching in their patrol, caught on the slight sigh blew through parting lips of the elf. 

Jason knew it was the elf. Richard always had his way of managing his body into an art of delegacy and grace. 

“They’re also not happy with your disagreement.”

“Of course they are.” There was silence again. “My instinct tells you have more in your mind than the words carry.”

“They’re not happy with your… participation at the King Council.” Silence again. When voice raised again, it was the King continuing. “It’s turning worse, since rivals and chaos are rising right in the heart of our land.”

“I have a feeling you have already agreed with them.”

There was an angry push of wood against stone, a clang of metal cup fallen, and liquid spilled. Alcohol hit Jason’s nose, wild berry, good rum. 

“You’ve given me no choice. We’re already walking on string. My people are questioning, the lords are leaving, faith grows thin as each day passes. Yet, you came back with an orc. An orc of all kind, for heaven’s sake.”

“He was dying.”

“Your immortality has made you forgotten that all beings must die. Whatever put him in that state, he clearly deserved it. This is our land.”

“Our land? No, when men united lands of their own into one kingdom, they took claim on forests, rivers, valleys and mountains in between as theirs. This world was once the home of all beings, now, it’s mankind’s without any consent.”

“You’re protecting him. I thought orcs and elves held no liking on each other.”

No shit. If the people of Jason’s tribe saw the future of him being saved by an elf, sleeping on his back on a human bed, they would have probably casted him away or burned him alive for good fortune. 

“It is true that I couldn’t stand him most of the time. He smells of metal and damp dirt. He speaks of arrogance and hatred. His body is rough and driven by ferocity. He is the representative of what us elves despise the most.”

Jason felt the bread choke on his throat. Blood boiling, he shot up on his legs before thinking of his place. If he wasn’t hiding, he would have jump down and break that damn neck with his own hand. 

Fucking pointy ears. 

“But that doesn’t mean his fate is meant for an end. If you cast him away, he’ll be the responsibility that I shall take myself with.”

Jason tripped. His legs kicked on tiles. His hands stumbled from something to grab on. He cursed in Orkish just in time to manage to grab on the top edge of the roof, planting his body flat to the tiles, blending his skin color in as guards looked up to see when broken tiles hit the ground beneath. 

“What was that?”

Shit, the last thing Jason needed right now was the king to walked out the balcony to catch him hanging on the roof like monkeys on trees. 

“It’s probably the cats again. Alas knows what they do in this high moon night.”

“Cats don’t usually go up this high.”

“Not the cats I feed.”

Jason heard the King’s sigh and let his head fell off. He cursed himself again, regretting every decision in his life that had led him into this embarrassing situation. He was a pride warrior of Podagog, not some damn mole or a petty thief. 

“Richard, you’ve lost your mind the night you brought that orc here.”

“If you of all people ever come across the thought that I might one day exchange wisdom for foolishness, you clearly have failed to know me.”

“This conversation stops here. I’ve had enough of a day.” Another sigh. “You too, rest. We’ll both be having a long day with the council tomorrow.”

“Goodnight, Bruce.”

As the door shut close, Jason let out a breath he didn’t know he had held. Clutching tight to the stones and tiles until debris crumbed in his palm, he slammed his head back, wondering what he was doing. 

He should had left. He shouldn’t have listened. 

“What did I say about eavesdropping?”

And wasn’t this just fucking great. 

Jason groaned and swung himself down the balcony. Richard stood by the table as if waiting for him. For once, he didn’t present with a smile on his lips. Only in his night dress, as white as his skin and a diadem of silver and gems that only elves would wear, Jason wondered if he had presented himself like this to the king, or had he stripped for bed without his notice. 

His skin was as pale as the moon, slightly glowing under the light of candles and fire. On his back, raven hair covered bare skin where the weird dress cut and showed like fountain of night sky. He didn’t burn oil in the air, but a scent of wild flowers and fresh leaves lingered. 

Lashes framed over his skin as he turned himself over to Jason. The red and orange of fire and burned light made his lips wear the color of ripped fruits, plumb and swollen, carrying witchcraft in shapes Jason knew not. 

He found himself swallowing. 

“You’re close to their king.”

Richard smiled, a mere huff of breath. “I’ve raised Bruce since he was a child.”

“He’s young, still have a lot to learn.”

“Indeed he is.” Richard stepped forward, staring at him. Jason swallowed again.

“It is rare for your idea and mine to mingle.”

At this thin distance, Jason’s nostrils flared. He smelled the comfy burn of wood in the fire, of fat melting from the candles, and the elf’s fragrance of nature and life. 

“Questions are clouding your mind. Let them out, for I may sooth some of your distress.” 

Jason fisted his hands. In older times, he wouldn’t hesitate to fight an elf. He once would kill to prove his loyalty to the oath of Podagog. Time changed, and here he was, inches away from chest to chest with an elf half his size, feet rooted deep down the stone floor as those elven eyes stared through his soul. 

“Why did you defend me?”

“I didn’t. I only spoke of mere truth.” A hand crept up his bicep, Jason shivered. Richard’s skin was as cold as lake water at midnight. Crawled on his hands were magic beyond most understandings. Jason half wanted to swat his touch away, half frozen by it.

“You’re a black orc, Jason. You’re a mighty warrior of rock mountains, cursed woods and open fields. You don’t wave axes and hammers to kill but only to fight.”

“You know about us.”

“I know your tales. I know enough of this earth that knowledge casts shadow on my sleep.”

Of course he would know. No elf knew nothing. And it had been so long, so long since somewhere spoke of black orc legends again. 

Jason stepped back, breaking their space. He lost himself in memories of victories and freedom, of fire nights and battling days. Back out on the balcony, he stared at the bright moon and cold night sky, the source of his strength, the guide of his ancestors. The moon that stared at him now, was the same moon that witnessed his happiness being casted away.

“Back in the days, we rode dragons and carved mountains. We molded steel from liquid fire and rain water of star sky. We guarded our kind borders and led first in glory battles.” Jason squeezed his eyes, looking down his empty palms. “It’s all in the past now.” 

“Past became history. History became legend. And legend became myth.” Richard came standing next to him, glowing as if born a star. “It’s been 93 years since my people left this earth. Dwarves shield themselves in mountains and mines, buried in treasure and ignorance of the world. By tomorrow when the moon set, it’ll mark 50 human years since the last orc was seen.”

He stared out into the night, passed where the lights of the city of human shone, past the mountains and forest by the edge of the sky, maybe even past where moonlight shadowed down. What elven eyes could see, was beyond Jason’s knowledge. 

“The life once lived are now myths between horse riders. Our existences are no further of tales for children and old men’s words. When I looked at you, I saw a string of‒”

“Hope.”

They both turned to look at each other. Two kinds of difference, two last of their kinds. Jason saw what Richard’s eyes carried like catching each words with his bare hands. The desolation of his beat the same rhythm with the one that carried Jason’s life until this day. 

That night when rangers caught him, declared to slaughter him in fear and unknowingness of the world that was now forgotten, Jason lied down on grass, bleeding close enough to chase after his lost ancestors. He thought of the journeys he once got and lived in. And when the elf arrived in moonlight and grace, he thought he had finally made it to the other side where their world had rested. 

Maybe the thing that urged Richard to save him that night, was the same thing that pushed Jason toward anywhere near the elf’s presence. They were two last of their kinds, the last of the fading reminder of the magic this earth once possessed. 

The night was young. Winds from north beaconed early snow by late midnight. Lights begun to shut down on the kingdom of humans they stayed. Like two lone rangers left of a forsaken empire, they walked the present while lived of the past. But for once in many years, Jason felt at ease watching the moon when the first snow fell. 


	4. Richard

It was a risky move to let Jason roam around in the castle ground like an honor visitor all the way from the North, but to his own defense, this was probably better than having another maid begging to quit her job before Richard handed them another task to the West wing where he kept the orc. 

Besides, what could possibly go wrong? 

“Oi princess. Go tell these prissy human beings I’m not going to fucking eat them.”

He couldn’t, just couldn’t, or straight out wouldn’t give Richard a single day off since staying here. By all means, Richard regretted every decision in his life that led him to the orc that night. 

He gave a curt nod to the lords and let them watch as he walked from the hallway down the courtyard where Jason was surrounded by all the children of the castle, maiden kids, the masters’ young apprentices. 

Despite their fear, children were drawn toward Jason by curiosity, and had soon grown bold since learning his silent patience and negligence of their appearance around his feet. 

“My grandfather told me, that orcs have those big white fangs to rip human necks out and suck our blood.”

“Said one more word and I’ll consider doing exactly that.”

“Don’t your feet get cold? You don’t have shoes. If you don’t wear shoes the snow will turn your feet blue and the doctor will have to cut them off.”

“Richard!” The way Jason howled could probably rock a mountain. “Get these humans from me.”

“You seem to have measured up quite a charm to these children.”

“Lord Richard!” The children ran toward his feet like little leaves clustered by the wind. Richard couldn’t help but smile when little smudged faces wriggled in delight. 

“Yeah yeah, go to your lord Richard, and leave me the fuck alone.”

These days, Jason didn’t do much but grunt and wander around the castle with guards sweating under his every step taken. No one dared to say a word, especially when Richard had Bruce turning a blind on but they didn’t need words to get the air stink with irritation. Their displeasure unsightly leaked out through the nook of their glances, the tremor of unspoiled wrinkled hands underneath silver and gold tunics.

They well knew the strength of a single orc couldn’t stand against the army in their command, yet they acted as seating on tipping fire. They were raising tension to the know not, pushing Richard further from his aid to the throne. Bruce feared the battles of men under his care, yet he failed to see, war had already started at the heart of his very home. 

Jason wasn’t safe here as much as he wasn’t out in the wood. 

“Children, why don’t you go check what the cooks have prepared for our lunch?” 

As fragile as a flag under the wind, their interests were bended back no more beyond the lunch table of the royal day time meal. They fled without much of a question, bumping into the maidens and soldiers on patrol with jolly on their faces. 

“Lively little monsters.” Jason grunted and reached his arm behind his neck. His muscles jointed under the stretch, thick binds of skin and meat that even a fierce knight with sharp blade took great force to cut through. Richard couldn’t help but marvel the might of his body, how each line formed and knotted together to construct this magnificent body. A fortress of flesh and bone. Many said, many saw, that a black orc had the strength of a bear, the speed of a stallion, and the courage of the god of thunder.

“You’ve been staring for quite a time, princess.”

Richard snapped out of his mind and turned away. Having no mercy on his dignity, Jason chuckled loudly, curling a strong arm around his shoulder, pulling him harshly toward his side, slamming the elf in a wall of clay skin and muscle. 

“What’s the matter? You haven’t been this shy cleaning my wounds.” 

He spoke so loud, his voice held no might back. Richard felt shame rise in his pit as eyes of maidens and soldiers of the courtyard fixed on him like a shooting target. As if immune to humiliation, Jason continued dragging his voice out for the world to hear how Richard had run his slim fingers on his naked chest like running droplets of midnight fog to tend his naked skin in the candle lit room sans assistance of any other.

Richard couldn’t help but flinch and twist his body out of the orc’s hold when the sight of the king regent emerged out from the gallery hall with lords from the south around his coattail. He bowed when their eyes met, a swift moment of fortune but the elder didn’t hesitate to barrel. His glassy eyes of age and awareness casted nothing on Richard’s existence but a mere acknowledge of just another being landed right on his sight, moved away coldly without even a curt nod back. 

Richard welly accepted these people resented him, from his existence in their world, to his power on the orders of their king. After all, no one liked each other in this game of throne. 

It was only after the party of the regent had left did he turn back to look at Jason. He had felt his eyes on him the whole time like a haunting ghost. 

“I expect you to do hold your tongue next time we’re out in the open.”

“Hold my tongue?”

“You orc might have great resilience against disgrace, but I’m less than so.”

Jason didn’t say anything, but he didn’t need to. Richard realized how anger had twisted his reasons as the orc frowned, a twitch of more bewilderment rather than furry.

Richard hugged himself, hot temper still bubbling in his stomach but he was aware Jason wasn’t at any fault. It was shameless to fire his anger on him, unsightly even to do so right in the middle of the open courtyard. 

“My apology.” Richard whispered. He felt the words caught in the middle of his throat, struggled to breach out as Jason continued to stare at him, felt his presence next to him, a burning aura of earth and raw clay. 

Jason finally looked away. He leaned back to his full height, sweeping his eyes across the space like a hawk seeking for another doom of its prey’s life. Soldiers. Maidens. Children. Lords and knights and masters. However their names and titles, under the orc’s eyes, they were probably nothing more than mere flesh walking in custom clothes and molded metal. 

Richard fixed his throat, felt a little hard to breath with how people stared at them, and how Jason shamelessly glared back until each lingering eyes turned away in fright. It was probably in his nature to act predatory, he probably, definitely didn’t mean well, but a small joy bloomed in Richard’s chest like wary petals shrugging off snow on the first ice break day. 

“Jason, do you feel like going on a walk?”

Jason arched his brows. “A walk?”

“Yes. Just a walk.”

He turned back to look around where people stared and pointed at them. An orc and an elf standing by each other, wouldn’t that be a hot tale for the castle daily stories. 

As sensing they were the talk of the crowd, Jason groaned and scratched the back of his neck. “Alright. Lead the path.”

“There is no path.” 

“What?”

Richard smiled when Jason cocked his head. He had to admit, even for a frightening orc, with white scars and shaved hair, he was quite a good looking one. 

“Close your eyes.”

“Why the fuck would I do that?”

“Because the inner structure of the royal castle isn’t one to be easily shared to an outsider.”

He sneered, bared teeth and Richard could imagine the orc had successfully scared most beings coming in his path until their blood left their faces with this expression alone.

“I close my eyes so you can stab me in the back?”

Richard tilted his head, petal lips pushed and curled. 

“Don’t fucking smile like that. I know you cunny elves are full of tricks.”

“If my aim was to kill, I wouldn’t need you blinded.”

Jason planted his hands on his hip and huffed like a bull. He didn’t look merry but at least, accepting. 

“Fine.”

Before Richard could snicker, he took a knee down the stoned ground, leaning forward into Richard’s space. He was too tall, too big that even when knelt, his head leveled the same height that reached equal to Richard’s eyes. That had the elf’s breath frozen. To have an orc on the knee like this, a black orc of all kind, it wasn’t a common sight of history. 

“What are you waiting for?” He grunted and pushed. His breath puffed on Richard’s face warm and tasted of dry grass to the nose. “Not afraid I might peak?”

He kept leaning forward, smirking as if he knew by doing so had Richard unsettled. It was dumb luck that they had moved into the hall, out of the open where an eye could carry a story into a storm.

Having an orc in his space so close their noses almost bumped into one another sure wouldn’t do any good to Richard’s already wounded reputation. 

Richard gingerly pulled out a napkin from his coat sleeve. He stretched it out, wondered if it was long enough to hold around Jason’s head. Running out of patience, Jason reached his hands up and covered on both of Richard’s, pulling them over behind his head. 

“You’re dragging time.”

His hand was rough, callused and textured like mountain rock, but his grip on Richard’s wrists held straight that wouldn’t break an egg. 

“Your skin is cold.” 

“Yours is hot.”

Jason didn’t say anything more, but he kept his grip lingering on Richard’s skin even after he had settled the blindfold. He probably in need for an assurance, after all, it wasn’t easy to ask an orc to give up their defense. 

“You can get up.”

Get up he did, and with that he let his hands go too. Richard had a brief moment of surprising himself with how lost he felt when the hot textured skin removed from his own. 

“Can you see anything?”

“I see nothing but your pretty little head, princess.”

Orc.

Richard pulled out his moon daggers from under the sleeves. He held his breath, waiting for a mere reaction from the orc as he flashed the bright light reflected from elven metal directly into his eyes. 

Jason didn’t even twitch. Richard swallowed and pulled his weapons back in. 

“Follow the sound of my voice.”

* * *

The path to their destination was… entertaining. Well, at least to Richard’s part, Jason seemed more or less irritated, letting out grudges and low earthy rumbling sounds from his chest to throat. 

By the fifth time he hit another stone pillar, Jason ran out of his patience and roared to his all might, arms swinging around until he managed to grab on Richard’s coat and pulled hard. 

He kept pulling and pulling until the elf reacted on instinct and wheeled himself out of his coat in order to not be stripped down the floor. Holding his coat in one hand, Jason grunted and bared his fangs, long pointy ears raised up like an alarm. 

He was frustrated, and for a moment his frustration had driven Richard to pull out his weapons again. 

“What?”

“Are we there yet?”

Richard swallowed, eyeing his coat in Jason’s threatening fist. “Not yet.”

“Are we even close?”

“We are close.” 

“Then should have fucking said so!” Jason punched the wall by his side, sending debris falling down the ground. “I can’t walk around not knowing shit like a headless monkey. If you playing tricks with my mind…”

“If anyone takes you as a joke, I would be the last.” Richard turned back and walked ahead with little mind to the wrath Jason burned behind his back. “There is no need to be sensitive.”

“I’m not sensitive.”

“Then I believe you can put up a better manner than a wild horse’s.” 

Jason grunted but spoke no more. Richard couldn’t help but let out a small huff.

“Here.”

“Here what?” When he felt Richard’s hand on his, he immediately jolted. “What the fuck?”

“Would you rather hit another pillar?”

“Would you rather me plucking your head off?” When Richard stayed silent and smiled, the orc huffed again. “I can feel you smirking at my face, princess.”

His words might seem harsh, but they were sent with a grin. So they walked with Richard held onto the hand of his race enemy. He could barely hold more than three of the orc’s fingers, barely pulling, but steps by steps, his lips curled up as Jason continued to let himself being walked around.

When they made it to the garden, the sun had already reached the other side of the mountains. Jason didn’t enjoy the light so Richard went over and pulled down all the vines and threads that had grown long and strong through the caring of time like a curtain. The ivy and rosary vines now could possibly reach all the way down the below floor if not hanged up. 

“You can pull the blind off.” 

Jason hesitantly pulled the cloth off his eyes, but when he did, he dropped it down the ground with little care. Shy feet stepped further inside the space, twirling his feet in circle as his mouth hung open. 

“Welcome to my aviary.” Richard couldn’t help but smile when the birds started landing on Jason’s shoulder as if welcoming his presence. 

Birds were sensitive creatures. It took a gentle soul for them to welcome.

The orc stared with little word to say. His eyes cast to everything, from the sedums that hung up high and had their beautiful milky pedant stems cascaded down like a blooming waterfall, mixed along were strings of pearls with pea-like foliage, long enough for the orc to touch at his height, the monkey’s tail cacti with feathery looking thorns, to the lower grounds where he laid seasonal flowers, fruit trees and herbals, colorful and lively even in the cold of winter. 

“In the name of Gat.” He gasped when brushing the palm of his feet against the cold wet grass. His skin might be thick but Jason was a wildness’s creation at heart, he needed not to feel to know its touch. 

Lost in the scenery, Jason started pedaling, inching toward an unknown destination in this close space. He put a hand up, stopped just above his head. As if touching the space, his fingers spread out slowly, skin licked the air, shakingly opened like blooming flowers under the first sunlight of forthcoming spring day. At high noon, sunlight peeked through the blinds of green leaves and vines, glistering strings of inviolable golden rays. When a wind came, the whispering bells that grew and hugged around the craves of stone pillars rustled and whistled. Fire dandelions cleaved and dissolved into thin air, cotton blooms felt on the orc shoulder, touching his skin before fiery red light died into blackness of ash. 

[Birds circled above their heads, dots of colors flashing agaisnt the winds. Brought along their casted shadows on the high wall of the dome were chorus rising, swooping, resting, just as motions of the feathers. 

Jason was charmed by them. He turned on the balls of his feet trying to catch after their line in the air. Small delicate creatured but they seemed almost untouchable.

“They are green sparrows. I haven’t seen one for a time.” He tilted his head up, straining his neck, swallowing. “A really long time.” 

“They eat only heart tree seeds.” Richard paced toward the orc, through decent steps he had wrung off his shoes, brushing his toes against soft wet grass. Above his frame, shadow of thousands leaves shaped of water drops covered the leaking sunlight from the holes of the dome.

“This is the last heart tree ever left in this earth.”

“How did you get it in here?”

“This garden has existed longer than you imagine.”

Jason huffed, disbelieved. “You planted it.”

Richard didn’t answer. He didn’t have too. He chose to remember the reflection of the birds against the shine of Jason’s eyes. Oddly enough, he found the wistfulness covering those grey purple pleasant.

This was the first time Richard ever brought an outsider to the aviery. This was his sanctuary of memories. Perhaps Jason himself made a fine peace of the picture rather than a visitor.

He motioned the orc and pushed into his palm a handful of red seeds.

“Don’t tense. Look.”

He lifted his hand up, and Jason let him. 

A green sparrow landed on the tip of Jason’s finger, jumping curt little steps down the palm of his hand. It moved its head side and side, tilting left and right. It looked at Jason, long enough for both the orc and Richard to see the glossy black eyes in the plumage of an impossibly bright green. A tiny delicate creature in the grasp of the descendant of war, one squeeze and Jason’s rock like skin could easily devour the life of the little being. It was  _ that  _ easy to take a life for a black orc. It was  _ that  _ fragile how everything appeared to those war trained pupils. 

The bird flew away after a few seeds, and Jason still held his hand open. 

They stayed until the sun came down. Normally, Richard wouldn’t have the luxury for a walk of freedom like this, after lunch and early evening usually were the time hybrid of council talk and tea break. He would sat down, they would stare, start talking while staring, and all he did was listen. His words no longer weighted of value, only his ears were because they knew where Bruce’s trust laid. 

Richard doubted after that night, his seat in the council had been dismissed. These days, the best he could do was sleep off matters that were no longer in his hands. This was a time when his thoughts became tormentors, a torture only escalpe by sleep. He was young, too young for his kind. He knew this sufferation of being powerless, impotent to the changes of human’s minds would soon come to an end once he learnt to accept. Elves were life-long residents of time, a hundred years would only be a blink, time for his lessons was as ever lasting as the sun. 

Jason had kept silent until the end of their free time. He bathed in the remaining existence of their long lost world as a wanderer finding an oasis, soaking in the sense of being alive again. 

He was a gentleman at his best, surprise enough. When Richard called for their return, he didn’t argue. His bare feet stamped down water grass, carrying him with the wind toward Dick’s calling. He looked down upon him, handed a blooming flower.

“For you.”

It was difficult not to be amazed. In this very moment, his smoke grey eyes carried nothing but compassion and the softness of care. Richard held his breath, hesistately received the flower from his big hand. 

Primerose. An elegantly humble flower synficatied in many tasks, either for medical purposes, brewing fresh wine, or dried up into herbal tea. It was also the representation of young love, a sacred symbol of clarity, of humble yet powerful passion.

“Thank you.” 

He was still looking down at Richard. It was hard to know what he was thinking. Their eyes met long enough Richard almost missed the hand that came up along the side of his head. Jason didn’t blink when he flinched of surprise, caressed his hair with a soft touch before tucking another flower on the fold of his ear. 

Firely light of dusk washed over his naked back, hugging every stone carved muscle. He was radiant, vivid like a summer delirious. Gracelessly, Richard found himself had stopped breathing. 

“Blue looks good on you.”

Richard had men kneeling for him before, many men, kings, heroes, legends. That little smile dangling off the orc’s thin lips was the prettiest thing he had seen in a while, for it extended to his eyes, all the way to the depth of his soul. It was such a gentle touch, the honesty that was a purity.

Many hands had offered Richard before, many hands, hands of wealth, of power, of beauty. It had been a while since his heart beat in this rhythm, revived from a long cold sleep.


	5. Jason

After that day, the elf rarely came back to see Jason. 

His wounds had healed completely, all left were scars for memories. The time for his leaving was near. He was counting down dusk and dawn until the day of departure. He must find his axe, must take a quick exit, must leave no track. And perhaps, he must come to the aviary once again, taking one last look at the heart tree, smelling one last wip of water grass, catching one last song of the green sparrows. 

He thought of Richard, not as an elf, but as… just Richard. 

Odd enough, he wanted to take one last look at him before leaving. 

The fortress of Wayne was a fine castle, built with a panorama of the surrounding land. Strong towels of clear white stones. Steadfast walls built for defence in an age that was defined by greed and the love of power. Past the iron gates that trapped would-be intruders, lived of servitude were eked, safe from battle-axe and ballista alike. This castle stood to inspire awe in a realm run on deference to royalty, to title and social status. 

Richard talked little of the Waynes, even littler of his time with the line. Jason didn’t need him talking, he could read stories through the gapes of stones, the scars on the walls and whispers of winds through the flying flags pridely hung on top each dome of watch towers. 

Elves were creatures adored by time and limitless wisdom. Under their hands magic could be created, from pure power far beyond most knowledge of this world, to irons lighter than aluminum but stronger than steel, glass clearer than water surface, blades glowed of lights, and leaders with insights of an oracle. 

Jason held no doubt part of the Waynes’ wealth came from the generous aid of Richard. Touches of elven culture leaked through every corner of this place, from wide windows of glasses, open domes with tall pillars, to long terraces wrapped around the castle heart.

Jason didn’t get to get inside the castle much, he could only stand on the open ground and look up, but even from outside, proof of Richard’s existence through generations carved onto the castle like marks time. 

Perhaps Jason wanted to see the elf one last time before leaving. 

By fortnight his wish was fulfilled. Richard stormed into the chamber at midnight on soiled gowned. Silver diamed crocked over refined forehead, diamonds and stones blended into dripples of glowing thin sweat. 

He didn’t speak, limps reached out and moved faster than carried word. Jason felt the ground beneath shook and turned following every swift movement of the elf. 

“What’s wrong?”

Richard still spoke of none, fingers swiped over the table and picked scizor, pins and needles into the bag he held open. 

Running out of patience, Jason stepped over and caught on thin wrist before Richard danced around the room again. 

“What’s wrong.” He repeated. 

“You need to leave. Bruce has officially taken power off hands. My chair by his side had been discarded. Our lives are now risked, you must leave before dawn.”

His lips and words moved just as brisk as his body. Jason struggled to understand, struggled to focus on anywhere but those roseate petals. 

“What do you mean “our lives”? I thought you and the king were close.”

“Bruce would never harm me, but I trust not of men under his wing.”

Jason wrung the bag out of Richard’s hand. His fingers clamped around thin pale wrist. With his strength, half the force could easily break an elf’s hollow bone. It was a delicacy his body had never carried that he clumsily forced himself to apply. 

“You have tamed kings for generations.”

“It’s true, I was deep in the king’s council, too deep for their likings. Perhaps I’ve been empowered for too long.”

“What can be more useful than words of advice from a high elf?”

“They want wars and battles of power, my advices are truly worthless in this case. Now come and help me pack everything useful, you must hit the north forest before the first patrol.”

“What about you?”

“I shall take my leave after you leave the capital ground, after most of the business here is settled.”

Jason frowned. He didn’t like the sound of this. consider the situation, Richard was left defenseless right in the heart of the enemy. The enemy that once was his family. He didn’t hear many stories from the elf, but every time he was kind enough to share, to tell, it would be the proud words of brave kings he had fought along, of honorable man he had aid. His compassion for the line, the people was as open and bright as the sun of highnoon.

Jason grinded his teeth. Betrayed and risked of harm, Richard shouldn’t be this calm over Jason’s madness. 

“Come with me.”

He spoke before thinking, though Jason believed he would have hardly spoken differently with a right mind. 

Richard looked back as if he was a mad man. “Didn’t you catch what I just said? If I leave now, the heads of this kingdom would be right at your tail begging for blood. They want no more of risks of the old world, the world that was once filled with greater creatures than them.”

“No, you’re not hearing me right. I said we leave, together.”

Richard stopped moving. Bright blue eyes stared right at Jason’s soul. His full lips pulled into a thin line, he wasn’t considering, he was judging. 

Jason suddenly realized, Richard must had anticipated this. 

He wanted Jason to say this out loud. An offer. 

Jason laughed out loud and jerked his grip back, pulling the elf closer to him. 

“Yeah, you’re coming with me.”

Cheeky little bastard already knew Jason would be this desperate because he was the last mystic creature he had got to see in such a long time and he was starting to get a little too fond of him.

Closer to dawn, they had finished packing. Richard turned to look at Jason, didn’t say anything. He clutched on the hem of his gown, suddenly looking smaller than Jason had seen before. 

“I want to come to the aviary one last time.”

Jason sucked in a breath. He should have thought. 

“Alright.”

“You can go with me if you want to.”

Was it an offer? Even if it was not, Jason would still assume it was. He truly wanted to take one last look at the marvelous aviary.

They sneaked out by the roof way. Down below were little guards on duty, but the air was good, the moon was nice, and better be careful than nothing. 

Compared to being blindfolded and unknowingly walking around, with the elf’s lead ahead, the way to the aviary felt much shorter than last time. 

Everything was very much the same as the last time he was here. If not, the flowers by the corners might have bloomed a little more. Richard plugged an armful of herbs, walking bare feet against the fresh grass. Jason finally understood why he smelled so good. His flesh showered in scent of seasonal flowers, of water grass and the heart tree soul. 

Richard had clear the ground and hushed Jason down to a secret path right next to a gate at the back of the castle, a horse to care and a word for patience. Jason held no doubt the elf would not leave with him, he probably need time to say goodbye, after all, the king was like his blood, and this place was like his home for many life times. 

Jason didn’t expect him to come back with his axe behind his back and a pair of long swords.

“In case we fight along the road.”

With two men’s strength, they went on the journey sooner than planned. Richard on his horse chose to let the main road when the castle sight was at end. They left no track, no mark behind. Among their luggages were little of clothes, little of food, mainly herbs and the elf’s medical tools.

Jason moved ahead to clear path and hold the horse bridle. As they left the main road, trees and rocks invaded their way, with thick skin and body of a building, Jason took the liberty to be a gentleman. Along the way there were little words to exchange. They mainly talked over the direction to take. Jason had enough experiences to carry the journey safely and correctly, if at worst, Richard could talk to the stars and winds to tell them back to the right track. 

By noon they had already made to the depth of the forest. 

“We should stop for water. There’d be a stream a couple miles ahead.”

Richard was right, they should stop for water. Jason was fine to travel for the rest of the day, but it wouldn’t be the same case for the elf and the horse. 

They soon found the stream. 

Richard frowned getting down from his horse. It mustn’t be pleasant sitting on horse back on uneven road for half a day if not a horse master. For a moment, Jason had consider helping him for getting down. 

“I’m fine.” he said though before jumping down in grace. 

He appreciated the effort when the elf shakingly made his way to the water source. “Cute” might would be much of a wrong word to describe his slim little form testing the water surface at this moment. The long journey with an unknown destination had worn both of them off, especially Richard. The elf wasn’t in his best mood, if wording wrong Jason was afraid he might actually pull his sword on him.

The forest laid green and open surrounding them, Jason felt lucky they made it here before the sun came high. The tall trees and generous branches hugged over the sky from their feet, covering Jason’s weakness for the sun. 

He considered walking around for something to eat. They didn’t get to have breakfast. Richard didn’t seem half as hungry as Jason, still, they needed strength for however long this journey would take. 

The dark woods and green forests, great valleys and high mountains had always been grounds of treasures, filled with gifts of nature. 

Winter was coming, perhaps morning hunt wouldn’t be so painful from now. 

When he came back with his axe behind his back and a hog on one shoulder, Richard was still washing his feet. His skin pale against grey rock, arctic silk peaked through moon white cloak soaked down flowing water. Stream flow of this season change mustn’t carry a comforting temperature, if drenched for too long he might catch a cold. 

The last thing Jason needed right now was one of them falling ill. 

Jason’s legs moved before his mind, hands reached out to pull Richard’s hair up. The tips of raven locks had dipped down cold water, curled and bloomed along the flowing stream as dark spilled ink. 

Richard dashed his eyes on him, those indigo darts, ice cold yet firely. Orcs used to believe blue eyes were a curse, the color of witchery, of deathly winter, that those of such eyes shall carry no warmth, no shared emotion. That was what he used to believe. Now he knew, the hottest fire burned blue.

“Thank you.” came out as a small whisper. 

“I found a hog.”

“How dreadful.”

Right, he had forgotten elves didn’t eat meat.

“Better than nothing.”

The elf didn’t answer. His head hung low, locks of hair too soft, leaked through Jason’s fingers, once again danced down stream surface. 

“Hey,” Jason might be slow-minded, but he knew something was quite off. 

He tucked RIchard’s hair by his ear again, just in time to see a droplet rolled on his cheek. 

The tears didn’t burst forth like water of fraining season but leaked little by little from Richard’s shiny aqua eyes. He didn’t sob, didn’t whine, just sat there and let the tears fall down as concise fog left after a damp night rolling on green leaves. There was a certain rawness to it.

Jason wasn’t one familiar with emotional support, but at least he knew it wasn’t as easy as the elf tried to make it look, leaving the once home, the once family. Home for generations, family for decades. 

Elves were immortal creatures, they must have been familiar with saying goodbyes. Perhaps that didn’t make it any easier. 

“Feeling better?” Jason asked once the elf whipped away tears and didn’t seem to cry any further. 

“Yes, thank you. You can let go of my hair now.”

Jason flinched. He hadn’t noticed his fingers still mildly held onto the elf’s raven stream. 

It was a pity to let go though. His hair was soft, smelt of green grass and midnight fog. 

“I’m sorry,” Richard sucked in a breath. “That was ungracious.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Let’s go eat something first. I’ll set a fire.”

“I don’t eat meat.”

“We only have meat.”

Richard stood up, dusked his gown and cloak. “I’ll go pick some fruits and nuts.”

“Learn the joy of life, princess.”

He squinted his eyes, looked down on Jason still half kneeling on the rocks, laughed suddenly. It was such a jolly sound. 

“Don’t call me princess.”

“Whatever you say...” Jason thought a little, smirked. “Richard.”

What he received back was a smile. It was a beautiful smile. He wasn’t wrong calling him princess though, Richard was prettier than most creatures he had seen. 

Richard came into the wood and came back after an hour with enough fruits and nuts for a two days journey. Jason had already done setting the fire and was about to finish roasting the hog. 

Richard handed him a purple fruit, pushing it at his chest. “Try squeezing it onto the meat, it’ll add on the taste.”

It was strange for a non meat-eater to know the way to make it taste better, but Jason didn’t comment. By the end, he was glad he didn’t. The hog did taste much better with the juice from the fruit. 

Jason was in a good mood today. Odd enough, he hadn’t felt himself this relieved and joyful in a long time. He had long forgotten what it felt like to have a companion on an adventure.

Richard sat right next by his side, peeling a date plum. Thin pale fingers hugged around a small knife, slowly twisted the blade to peel the yellow skin off the date. Maybe because of his look that even well known Richard was a sword master, Jason still itched feeling he could cut himself with the tiny blade at any time. 

“Hey,” Jason didn’t know the root of the worry that was growing down the pit of his stomach, but surprised enough, he didn’t feel uncomfortable enough with its presence. 

“What is it?”

“Here,” Jason peeled a piece of meat for him, pushing toward his lips. “Have some.”

Richard frowned, lightly tapping his arm to push it away. “I don’t eat meat.”

“You need the energy. Those nuts and fruits won’t help you get through the rest of the trip once the snow starts falling.” 

Elves in common weren’t active creatures, even with a speed of light and an art of fighting style, elves never spent more energy than calculated. Jason’s body could carry itself through a 3 days journey without a break, but Richard was not the same case. 

The north wasn’t a place for everybody. If not eat well, sleep well, he might actually wouldn’t survive under this exposed winter.

“Come one, one bite. I hunted it for both of us.” 

Jason could eat the whole thing without a flinch but it wouldn’t hurt to lie. He pushed the meat closer to Richard’s lips, the fat paint a shine gloss over rose petals. Jason didn’t know why it was him who swallowed.

“One bite?” 

“One bite.”

That was the first time ever his life that Jason hand-feed someone.

* * *

By the third day they finally made it to the edge of the forest. Along the way Richard had picked up enough nonsense things that Jason had long gone out of patience to ask. There was no horse path in the middle of the forest, and too much to carry, for that the journey dragged out far more than expected. Odd enough, Jason didn’t complain. He himself could make it to the north mountains by the fourth day if travel along, but with Richard by his side, it would probably take twice the time. 

“Here’s the end of the forest.” 

On horse back, Richard stared at the open ground laid in front of them, sucking in a lungful. Snow had started dribbled down from last night, soon enough, winter would covered this place in white. 

“Where do you plan to go?”

His first intention was the north mountains. Barely any intellect creatures dare to face the harsh winter up there. Jason could made a place up along the hills, when hunting for the season by the feet of the mountains. 

Dashing his gaze over to the elf, perhaps there were better choice than the north. From here but further to the west, the dark wood there could serve them enough ground to wander, hunt, shield from other’s living eyes. Seasons in the west would be less challenging, foods would be more various, maybe the elf could find it a place to get familiar with.

“To the west.” He decided. “The dark woods there would be a maze to the unknowns.”

It was a good choice. Humans feared dark woods, places filled with mystery darkness and tales of magic. 

“If to the west, by midnight you shall meet a waterfall. Camp there for the night.” 

Jason frowned. Something was off about his words. 

As if read his mind, Richard huffed a sound, hand reached down to pat his horse. 

“I’m heading to the East valley. The sacred fort of high elves should still be left in peace.”

“No one is there.”

Richard blinked his blues, looking forwards to places Jason’s eyes couldn’t reach. “Perhaps a sacred fort should at least have a guardian should a course might come.”

A guardian? No, more like a ghost bound itself to the remaining past of a long lost time. Only a lost soul would ever make its way to the long forgotten east valley. Richard might have to wait til the rot of time should such “course” might ever come.

That was, if he could even made it to the valley alone.

“So it be then.”

There was more grudge in his voice than Jason wanted to. He talked big of going to the east valley but on the horse back it seemed a simple wind could blow him down the ground rolling in dust like a dry leaf. Maybe when the snow started falling, his pale figure wrapped in moon white cloak would also blend into one with the fallen flakes. 

Fuck it.

“Hey,”

Fuck this. Fuck this.

“Why to the valley? You can come with me to the west.” Come one. “There’s plenty of places we can stay, plenty of herbs for you to find.” Say something. “We can protect each other better. In the end, there’re only two of us left.”

Richard pulled on the bridle, looking down on him with bright round eyes burning blue. He needed to stop looking at Jason with those eyes. 

He must be amazed. Jason was amazed by himself. His ancestors must be turning down their graves listening to a lesser descendant pulling down honor for an elf.

“Well?”

Richard licked his lips. His mind was still in a surging perplexity. 

Jason’s temper was heavily tested watching the little gap between those plum lips close and open. It was a lot to offer, a lot to consider, after all, they were enemies from the start of time, but the humiliation rose under each passing wind that Jason had started regretting every given words before. 

“Me? Staying with you?”

Technically Jason didn’t offer them must staying together, but what harm could it be.

“Yes.”

“You don’t fear I might pull a sword in your sleep?”

“I sleep with my axe.”

Richard licked his lips again.

It was such an ungracious move, so human. The elf must have picked up this habit due to his time accompanied with the halflings. 

Though the elf’s wet lips did made a pretty view. 

“Alright.”

Jason didn’t expect him to actually agree. Richard smirked down at him, just a small pout of the lips, a narrowing of the eyes and a slight tilting of the head. It was subtle, Jason couldn’t take his eyes off the raven stream flowed off his shoulder. 

Suddenly, he felt like being fooled. 

“How long will it take to get there?”

“Two days.”

“Let’s move to the waterfall and camp there for the night.”

Jason huffed. He should have seen this coming. 

Striding over, he took the bridle off Richard’s hand. He had been walking around by his nose enough for today. 

As calculated, they made it to the waterfall just by sun down.

Even from distance, the waterfall had been a mighty beast roaring against rocky outcrops. Powerful flows hit against the rocks and stones, ground flat even the pointiest edges, pooling down into a lake large enough to dive. 

They could barely hear each other if coming too close. Jason chose to stop by the one side of the lake. Richard got off his horse, bent his back and stretched his neck. Jason could almost hear the little whine from his throat if not for the deafening roar of the waterfall.

Thin fingers tapped on Jason’s shoulder, he turned back to meet a pair of bright blue eyes staring up at him. Richard spoke of none, just pointed a finger toward the baggs hung over the horse and left into the forest. 

He was going for digging some herbs, vegetables, fruits, whatever it was. Jason had gotten used to the elf’s fixation on getting his hands full of dirts for stupid trees. It was bizarre how quickly he got used to having the elf by his side in bare days. 

Left alone, he admired the waterfall in silence. It was nothing like the slow-flowing streams they had met along the way, languid in pace, lax by nature. It was lively, aggressive. Water danced and swished over the high rocks joyfully, thundered into the lake as gigantic spouts. The rest of the lake was as clear as midnight air, with the dying light of dusk, the lives at bottom of water revealed. Fishes floated above rounded rocks, curled fins and tails as capering a dance of nature. 

Jason saw them as nothing more than foods, a source of energy for greater activities, but perhaps Richard would love this. Elves had always carried a tight bond to nature and all bounded living creatures. 

Around the lakeside bloomed wild flowers, small and fragile against the winds, yet they grew and prospered from the winter when everything withered. Jason left the waterline and came to the bushes. White flowers brushed against his calloused fingers as soft as feather, contrasting his pale ash skin. 

They smelt of flowers, just like any other kinds. They didn’t smell like the elf though, he always smell like nature, but not of any flower. One could only close eyes when next to him and imagine a sun bathed landscape of green trees, fresh air, clear lakes and singing birds. 

Jason would presume he happened to like white.

When the sun had sunk down the skyline, Richard had not yet come back. Jason sat by the rocks against the waterline, tapping his foot in impatience. The flowers laid by his side, all the prettiest ones he had chosen among the bushes.

Fire cracked woods and burst flaming lights against the air. Jason stared into the flame and asked himself, had Richard gone to the east without him.

Most likely impossible. His horse was here munching on the pile of stevia Jason had plucked. But the thought of being left behind, of finishing this journey alone hit him first. 

How pathetic it was, he had been a lone wanderer for longer time than most man life, yet after a short week accompanied by the elf, everything changed.

Was he angry? No, he doubted it was anger. But certainly, the thought of being left behind without a note discomforted him immensely. 

As the stars arised, Jason ran out of patience. He took his axe and marched into the forest. He could conspire with the elf’s stupid need of scavenging as if treasure hunting, but this was beyond ridiculous. They needed to eat, sleep and get ready for tomorrow. If delayed, they might not make it to the dark wood before the heavy snow. 

The forest hummed with life around him. In the dark of night, there weren’t songs of birds but only whispers of trees among the winds, callings of insect and crunches of dry leaves, dead branches under his weight through every step. The forest wore a different cover when at night, no lights leaked through leaves of old oak trees, no sun shone and reflected on leftover fog, trees wavered against winds, oaken arms reached out, curled in undesigned shapes, giants roots crawled among the dirt, from afar, water flows among the fallen leaves, inside the rocks, beneath the ground, talked. 

A lesser man wouldn’t ever come into the depth of the forest when the god of light had taken a leave. The once alive forest when sunrise could chill any man when at night. 

Jason grumbled, miserably recognized the elf barely left any track to follow. He must have dance up among the highest trees, if not, his footsteps were always too airy to catch. 

A few more steps, Jason found tree with torn barks. Mark claws sunk deep into the flesh of even the toughest woods, bleed out from open wounds were yellow sap, some were old enough to thicken, some were still leaking. 

His brows knitted. He swiped over the claw marks, nails dug out a thin layer of feather, short, brown, deceived quickly into the soft winds.

Bears. Not just any bear, but big, old ones. 

Richard. 

Jason sword and fixed his axe on his back, running. He didn’t get far enough until he saw them. They were gigantic beast. Some were pitch black as the starless night sky, some were oak brown as the surrounding trees. They moved together, slowly, patiently, lumps of thick muscles and fat covered in fur brought the ground shaken with every step. 

And then they saw him. In the dead of night, there was only him and the bears, staring at each other, waiting for one to make the first move. This was one of those rare times Jason saw bears moved by pack, oftenly he founded them as loner. One he could handle, but a pack was a different story. 

There teeth soon exposed in an angry fashion. They were sharp, white daggers hanging inside dark moist caves ready to slice flesh apart from bones.

Ironically, Jason huffed. He pulled his axe down, spread his stand. 

He just hoped Richard was still nose down the dirt somewhere, digging mushrooms before he came.


	6. Richard

For a long time he found himself bound to the fortress of stone and iron of the Waynes. Bruce, turned out, was very much like his great grandfather. 

Theodore Wayne was obsessed with him, even a blind man could have seen. 

Back in that time, the round table only had space for five chairs, four by the sides and a throne for a king at the head. Theodore had refused to build another silver seat for his counselor right by his side, because his utmost want was Richard to sit on his lap so he could have his ego outspread. And each time Richard gave him his words, each time he saw the big hand tapping down muscular thigh of an excellent swordmaster, inviting, he refused. 

So by his side he had stood for 40 years.

Theodore had banned him from leaving the Wayne Castle at regular, and soon when learned his prohibition meant too little to Richard, he had switched into bounding him with works and responsibilities. It had worked.

During his short life, Theodore had made many promises to him, many he had broken. But there was one oath he had kept until the last of his breath. He had loved Richard until the end of his time. 

It felt just like yesterday when Theodore’s wrinkle hand held onto Richard’s youthful skin. His touch was still new and memorial. He had coughed blood, cried tears and smiled of relief when begging Richard to never abandon his line.

Theodore Wayne had died never bending the knee to anyone, anyone, but Richard.

The whole of his life Theodore had never forced him with words, never once in his prime times or weakest moments had he tried to bound the elf to any commitment. 

Richard had tried holding on to his words until now. Until Bruce.

Theodore lived more in Bruce than anyone else. They shared that same tension between the brows as if the weight of the whole world laid just above the bridges of their noses. Bruce resembled him from the strict straight of his back, the insolence in each swing of his long sword, to the way he killed an ebullient feast with only silence. 

His bound toward Dick though, was different from Theodore’s, not love, not lust, but admiration. Richard couldn’t say watching the journey of him becoming a man hadn’t there been moments when Bruce crossed lines he shouldn’t cross and following the same footsteps his great grandfather had left, but Bruce was a greater man of his generation. 

He saw. He heard. He recognized. Acknowledgement might be a simple task, yet it was a task many failed. He was too young for such an old world. And Richard was too old for this young kingdom. 

People talked. People told. People feared of the phenomenal, of the exceptional among the well learnt patterns. From time, Richard once again found himself bind behind walls of stones and gates of irons. But if Theodore had shield him away from his people to feed on his greedy possession then Bruce had shielded him away from open eyes to feed on his own humiliation. 

Kneeling on soft grass, Richard sighed thinking of the past.

He shouldn’t be like this. The days up ahead seemed far more interesting than the years had gone. It wasn’t as if he couldn’t come back. One day he would, perhaps by then, Bruce had been just another statue among the great kings in the main hall. A couple of hundred years, in the end, were merely a blink to an elf. 

The newborn bears rolled around him like balls of fur. Fat little noses sniffed on his fingers. They tumbled over him as if he was a playground, enjoying both the carressing petting and leftover aurora of fresh fruits on his skin.

“Naughty.” Richard huffed. He turned to rest his back on the mother bear laid just behind him. She sniffed his hair, rubbed her wet nose against his cheek. Dry leaves and tiny branches littered over her thick fur. 

She was warm as summer sunlight. Her eyes both black and bright, stared at him in gentle silence. Richard stared at his own reflection in her eyes, fingers curled around her short round ears.

“You’re a great mother.” 

She never left her eyes off him. He could hear even her lightest breath. Up this close, so close, all he could sense was her warmth, her honey combed scent. There was nothing but calm stilled in her lazed expression. 

She bumped her head against his forehead so delicately, just to hear him chuckle in joy. 

When Richard realized his skin was glowing against the dark, the moon had come high. Jason came to his mind the moment his feet shot up. The orc was probably looking for him by now. Despite his look, nest beneath those thick skin and rocky attitude was a gentle soul as the earth. 

The mother bear got up when he stepped away. She wanted to escort him back. He was distracted with her kindness. With his eyes, he could have seen it sooner. 

Jason covered in blood wrestling dark shadows. Richard rushed toward his direction, jumping on trees and flew with the winds. Passing the old trees, crossing little open grounds, he reached further into the dark forest, slipped into the thick layers of big trees and enormous crowns. 

Jason rolled among the dirt. His axe stained crimson. The bear charged with a mighty roar. The orc dodged aside in one fluid move, his axe axe raised. Sharp curved blade flashed a blinding light of the moon reflection before nailing down the bear’s neck. Iron sunk into red flesh, pushing blood and a sorrow cry out of the dying creature. He shuffled into a circle and awaited in attack, and, possibly, inevitable death.

Jason’s face was unreachable, no fear, no inviting smirk. His eyes gleamed of light in the dark night, painted in the cold of solemnity and acumen of a combat master. 

As soon as Richard stepped out of the shadow, his eyes immediately met Jason’s. Right the instant, there was something changed in his core. As if a flame was set afired, his movement turned from a fluid stream into a ruthless waterfall. He grabbed the bear was running toward Richard by the back, pulling the creature in full strength before wrestling in down the dirt. Sharp teeth snapped into thick muscle, Jason grunted in pain, held his palms into its mouth and ripped its jaw in two.

Richard watched the bloodbath naked in front of his eyes, pulling his swords.

He closed his eyes, listened to the winds and the rustle of trees surrounded the forest. 

“Forgive me, for tonight, I shall sin.” 

He charged ahead. 

His swords gleamed in cool moon light. Flashing in the cold night, his diadem never budged when he flipped in the air, slid against the wind and struck his blade down the neck of the bear. Before light left the animal, he closed his eyes, giving the bear one last petting, and prayed in Elvis. 

“Richard!” 

Jason threw him his axe. The blade slid by his side. If Richard hadn’t moved it would have sliced his shoulder off. He could barely hold a grunt catching the hefty weapon. 

Both hands freed, Jason growled grabbing the bear snapping by his ear. Both brawled in pure power. Richard grinded his axe into a tree, stamped in his foot sole on the blade and jumped on the neck of a bear. Only in a fool’s dream would he ever fight with such weapon. 

With luck, under a sane state he could have this creature as his friend. But now, the best he could do was putting an end to this madness. 

With his weight upon his shoulder, the bear grappled with insanity. He felt nothing but the tension in the muscles under his body, heard nothing but the intensity in its fear. He struck his swords right through his head, stopping its misery at once. 

Lifeless, the creature fell ahead. Richard jumped off its body when it hit the ground. He bent his back just in time for a coming mighty slap of a black bear. He sunk one sword into its shoulder. The stuck blade gave him the leverage to twist his body and send a kick in the eyes of the marching oak bear. 

These creatures beared the strength of Jason and half the sense of his head, which wasn’t much right from the start. Those witless could only carry a fight in outrage and ignominy. His maneuver swayed in only half the attention he could have given in a proper fight, half of his mind was clouded in thoughts, thoughts of a better vision they could have been in.

When the last creature fell down, weavered in bleeding wounds and fading life, Richard sucked in deep breaths, felt the cold air of the night sky bathed over his skin. Blood stunk the air, clocked every other scent of nature in this mighty forest. Crimson pooled underneath his feat, soiled the tail of his cloak, his hands. Splashes painted red on his cheek. Not a single elven blood was dropped. 

Under the moonlight, he knew he was glowing. He knew he was a star fallen lost in this carnage. 

Jason heaved of exhaustion. He was bleeding.

“We made a great team.”

The joy was clear in his voice, a subtle sound blended with heavy breaths and overpowered scent of blood clounding the air.

Richard stared into the dark afar. The blood on his blades had turned cold, hardened. What had happened was still fresh in his mind, as if his swords were still wielding.

“What happened.”

Jason grunted. He lifted his dense body off the ground, making solid steps toward Richard’s direction.

“I was looking for you. They came to my path. Lucky they hadn’t met you first. Bears this season can slaughter its own kind with hunger.”

“If they had met me first, they would have had this fate.”

So many of them. Richard didn’t have the heart to count. It was just a moment ago he sat in the warmth of one of these creatures, felt its touch of solitude.

“Richard?”

He slapped away the hand that had yet fallen on his shoulder. Giving his back to Jason, he walked toward the still breathing bear. Each step weighted of stones. 

The animal whined curt little sound, black fur shone the soft gentle color of a starless sky. It didn’t look at him but stared aimless into the view ahead. Perhaps it couldn’t see anything anymore.

He knelt down the earth by its head, slung his swords aside, hand reached out to pat on soft wet fur. He smelt nothing, felt nothing. All he could sensed was its weak whines of the waiting death. Those eyes never met his once, clouded in innocence blackness of a wounded creature knowing nothing but endless pain. 

“Shall the motherland embrace your body. Your soul ought to run idle among the great stars, must no harm can ever come to you again. Rest, my poor child.”

He pierced its throat. 

He sat in the pit of silence, the only subject of his eyes was the shapeless souls of the bears danced in the wind, a blue light carved off stars and fireflies. Tonight shall they be just another stars among the thousands in the bed of night, the innocent refugees of peace caught in the crossfire of this sinful earth. May their  reincarnation be in another world more worth of their serenity. 

Jason came by his side, he a wall of destruction radiated warmth of a bright summer noon. He who killed and sent innocent creatures to the land of peace before their time knelt down by his frame delivering touches of delicacy. 

The commotion he found in this apparent contrast breathed in one same body. It would have been less challenging to linger on his resentment if not the look the orc was giving him.

He held on Richard’s arm, pulling him up from the blood soiled grass. His blue gown tained the color of death. 

“Let’s go back to the waterfall. I’ll skin them and make dinner for tonight.”

Richard’s heart stopped catching the content of his word. Ire inflamed deep beneath his body and outburst right on his reflection in Jason’s eyes.

“They were innocent lives.” 

“Yeah, innocent lives that almost ripped my fucking shoulder off.”

Jason pushed the bleeding shoulder toward his gaze, grunting in pain. Claw and teeth had left gaping holes on his thick skin. Blood marked his body into a messy painting. Scratches and bruises against Richard’s pale shining skin were grotesque, but it was the least Richard cared. He scanned the orc, grazed his fingers along the length of his body to find an evidence of a deeper wound. 

Perhaps if he had paid just a little more attention to anything else rather than the injuries, he would have recognized the odd look Jason gave him under the moonlight. 

“You’re right. We need to get back. I need to patch you up immediately.”

Jason squinted his eyes, opened his mouth but failed to say anything. He let Richard dragged him back toward the waterfall without an argument. 

The first thing Richard did when they got to the place was pushed Jason falling into the lake. Defendless, he tripped foot on foot and landed face down. The orc must have suck in a lungful of water before surfacing with murderous eyes seeking for violence. 

“What the fuck was that for!” He roared of furor but besides from a threatening face was nothing more. 

“Wash the wounds clean. Don’t tear anything open before I can seal them close.”

“You could have said.” The orc grumbled to himself and turned to splash water on his skin. 

Richard turned to open bags to bags. He pulled out herbals, bottles of distilled medicines, powders and clean cloth. He spread them out on even rocks, turned his head just in time to admire the majesty of Jason’s body.

Jason had swiped his hair up. Freed from all the leathers of his clothing, his dark skin and roiling muscles left nothing to hide under the bright moonlight. Droplet dripped from his hair, ran on his cheek and formed along strong jawline. Pass the bold bone structure was a thick neck and a broad shoulder. His shoulders were so wide Richard could almost imagine himself sitting on one side perfectly, and he was no small man. Further down below were waves of thick skin and trained flesh, sculpted muscles that could compete a war stallion. His eyes couldn’t help but stare at all the firm bundles and faded scars his upper body primly showed. 

Half drowned in the lake, his pants had stuck tight on to his legs, hugged around all the places Richard had not noticed before.

Their eyes met without warning. Richard curtly swiped his head away. Hid behind the frame of his hair brunt red his cheeks. It wasn’t the first time he observed the mighty of his body, but doubtless, it was the first he felt this strange beating in his chest watching the grand build of the orc lively welcomed his attention. 

Jason’s body was a piece of art. It was as if he had carried the soul of the mountains in each line of his frame. Monastery quiet, he stood, colossal, powerful. In the middle of the great lake, the high moon drafted reflection over his own on the glimmering surface. 

Richard sucked in a deep breath watching Jason marched out the lake and came by his side. 

“Sit… sit down.”

Jason looked down on him, huffed. He was so tall, even from the big rock he sat on, Richard tilted his neck in a weird angle to catch the most of his face.

“I need to see how bad they are.”

Jason squatted down close enough Richard felt his warmth covered the thin space they left in between. 

“Not that bad. I’ve been through worse.”

“I’m surprised you live well with this neglect.”

“I’m no human.”

He picked up a small rock by one hand and held Richard’s wrist by the other. 

“Relax.” He laughed when Richard jumped a little. “Here.” He pushed the rock into his palm and held it close. 

Richard frowned when Jason squeezed both of their hands. Pointy edges of the thing grinded against his palm. He stared at Jason’s face, admitted to himself that the man was even more handsome than he had acknowledged before. 

Perhaps Richard was losing his sanity, but he thought he had seen fire crackled in Jason’s eyes when he looked back at him.

When Jason let go and opened his palm, his skin had turned red and numb. 

“Look here.” Jason took the rock out of his hand, held it in his own palm, and crushed it in a blink of an eye. The thing turned to dust under his sheer strength, leaving Jason’s hand as spotless as it was before.

“A simple rock can hurt you, but not me. Orc skin is thicker than most. I grew up pillowing on mountain rocks and rolling over cutting stones on river hunts.”

“That’s admirable.”

“It’s the way my kind live. The most fortunate nature gives up is unmatched brawn in action.” He stopped and looked at Richard. “Unlike your kind who are gifted with mostly everything but durability.”

He was right. The main reason elves could make high jumps a part of their casual activities was because the light of their bones. Their skin was paler than most creatures, possessed ability to glow in moonlight but it bruised easily as a white sheet quickly got stained just from a simple foreign touch. 

“So, you’re still angry?”

Richard blinked. He had not expected this. 

To be honest, he wasn’t twirled in the grudge anymore. Watching, touching these wounds under his fingertips punctuated their existences on Jason’s skin, Richard understood he had just defended himself. In the end, the orc had come looking for him. 

But he would like to see his reaction if he chose to answer different. 

“What if I still am?”

Grey blue eyes stared at him. So close. Too close. Richard stumbled on obstacles trying to translate his mind. The moment he set his eyes on him, he knew this was no ordinary man. He must be. He had to be. If a lesser man, Richard would have dropped his gaze and move on, but with him, he could never. He was drawn closer, craving for more. 

At some point in this comforting silence left Richard foolishly wish if they could stay like this til eternity, welcoming the night with churring winds carrying the messages of their unvoiced thoughts.

Then Jason said words he groomed in his mind.

“Richard,” He called, whispery, gently. A strange electric was sent from his rumbling low voice to run free and spread on Richard’s skin. “We’ve got 3 days until we reach the west wood. During that time, I’d kill more. And you couldn’t stop me. You couldn’t. You would have to get used to it. We’re going on the same journey together, and you’re going to see things like this a lot more often. I know what elves are up against, but I’ve survived til this day no thanks to elven morals. I won’t change the way I think, the way I am just so your long gone people can sleep better at night.”

Surprise wasn’t an emotion he was familiar of. When living at this age, older than most livings, hardly anything could astonish his ever seeing eyes. 

Yet, at this moment, he faced the mountain soul in Jason’s fearce eyes, speechless. 

“I...don’t ask you to change.”

“Then we’re good.”

Jason still held on his hand, they said nothing but stared at each other. In this stillness, Jason brought a sudden fear rose in Richard’s stomach. Perhaps it was the moonlight and shadows of the old trees sculpting his face, or the soft cold night forced him to admit the gentle heat from the orc’s body, he wasn’t sure. 

It was as if time had slept through their existences. Wind ran through locks of his hair that was tenderly held up by a muscular hand. Jason’s breath smelled of wet soil, humbly earthy. 

Neither knew since when was the space they drew had waned, but if any closer, their noses might touch, and perhaps, their lips too.

They both jerked awake when a sparrow squealed right by their side. 

Jason immediately got on his feet and chased the bird away. Richard left sitting on the big rock, hand held on his chest remembering what had happened. 

“That damn bird.” Jason spat out in anger. It wasn’t much to get angry, yet he looked as if someone had kicked his horse. “You alright?”

“Why would I not?”

Jason clicked his tongue. 

The leftover silence was more awkward than watching snow fall in summer. Richard turned toward the waterfall. He listened to its rumbling and pretended the sound in his chest was just a faint delusion.

How absurd what they almost did just there. Odder, Richard had felt at lost when Jason pulled away. 

How long had it been since he last felt this? Too long, far too long. 

It was the feel of holding on to another land facing toward the endless valley of elven land. 

It was the same feeling as when they first sparred. 

The feel of being alive. 


	7. Jason

They moved along to the behind the waterfall. With elven eyes Richard had spotted a cave hidden behind the frame of the waterfall. They secured the horse by the entrance and made steps in. Following Richard’s determined feet, Jason was beyond confident nothing was waiting ahead in darkness. 

The temperature rose once they enter the middle-sized chamber, sending a shy huff of relief from the elf. Faded moonlight reached neither wall nor ceiling, but just enough to flickered against the water surface of a small pond laid not so deep inside. 

Richard came by the rocky line and dipped his hand down the water, lips shaped a spell in the first language of the world that perhaps in another life, Jason wouldn’t still be able to grasp the meaning. 

The pond suddenly bubbled. Water boiled and stilled as quick as a blowing wind. Richard grabbed his bag and threw some plants and dried leaves in, and read another spell. The pond glowed a mystic light and color. Steam floated a thin layer above the surface.

“High elf magic.”

Richard nodded. “This should help soothe your wounds.” He looked at him, cocked his head. “Strip.”

This fucking elf. He would be the death of Jason, no doubt.

Jason still couldn’t forget what they almost had back there. It was impulsive, institive. But he wanted it, badly. 

He still wanted him now.

Jason got down the pond as bare as the day he was born, sighed. The water was warm, deep enough to cover his lower belly. It loosened knots in his muscles he didn’t know existed. Jason was eager to walk all the way to the other side of the pond where there were little rocks underneath, maybe the water could reach all the way to his shoulder and wash over the gaping holes shaped of bear teeth. 

Richard took off the hood, stripped off his cloak. He was glowing in the dark cave, pearl skin covered in white light, a fallen star missent to this sinful world. 

He shredded his gown off with a dance of his fingers. Layers of blue silk pooled down by his legs. Jason lost his breathed staring at his bare skin, the curve of his back.

“Richard...”

He walked down water in one fluid motion. As soft as the silk he wore, he streamed down the pond as moonlight in liquid. Long pointy ears flickered through the frame of soft iridescent long hair that shone of youth, floated above the surface and curled in divine locks. 

Richard only had two stages of his movements, either nimble as the wind on the high cliffs of rocky mountains, or a laze flow of ease as this instance. A slow drop of the eyes, a light dance of fingers against water, a gentle sway of sculpted hips, either which state he chose to perform it was alluring for the eyes. Like a fish heading into a net, Jason got caught speechless in his grace, his divine beauty. 

He turned his back to Jason, long fingers collected the whole of his hair and swiped them by one side, showing wet back glittering of droplets as pieces of rare stones grew deep beneath the ground in dragon carvens. Jason’s eyes were bewitched by the shallow line ran along his curved back, all the way down the thin waist of delicacy, to the swell of his hips. Further down below…

Jason swallowed, lost of word when Richard slowly turned himself toward him. And all he could see upon his naked form were only his eyes. Stones of the deep sea with light of the stars, they glittered, illuminated in the dark, burnt off one by one the fragile strings of Jason’s restraint.

He stepped toward him, parting water and making waves in his rush. Richard stilled looking up at him with those blinding eyes. 

Jason tucked his hair behind his ear, fingers purposely pushed on the thin skin of his lobeless ear.

He needed to ask. He needed to, or else he was losing his sanity. 

Richard shivered under his touch. Rich lips pushed out a puff of hot air. He closed his eyes, lashed shakened, and laid his cheek onto his palm.

Jason growled and lifted the elf up from under his thighs. 

His lips were as soft as their looked, tasting of wild berries. Sweet, so sweet. Jason was suck in the paroxysm they shared. He couldn’t let go of him, he could only feel Richard’s arms hesitely made their way around his neck, closing their distance. 

Their tongues locked around each others. They played a teasing game but it was fierce, fiery, passionate and demanding. He never wanted to pull away, he was in too deep of this elysian trance of desire.

He felt him under his skin, the small of his back, the soft of his silken hair, his long refined neck. He drew an exclusive map of touches on his skin with his hands, his lips, his teeth, his everything. 

Jason’s feet walked on themselves, carrying them to the wall of the cave, water deepened around his chest. If he dropped Richard down, he would probably drown. 

He hoisted the elf higher up, high enough that his neck tilted to kiss him. He grinded him against the stony wall, felt his skin trembled when touched the cold stone. 

He kissed his lips, his neck, the bridge of his nose and even the lids of his eyes. He kissed him and kissed him, and the world just fell away. 

Maybe he was feeling a bit too much. The tensity under his fingers glazed on a foreign sense of sanctity. He touched him, sheepish brushes of skin on skin, sacrilegious kisses blasphemed gods. He entered this shrine a sinner and lighted candles with gory hands. 

“I want you.” Richard grabbed a fistful of his hair, pulled. Shakily, his voice whispered their way into his ears, setting everything inside him aflame.

“Don’t...” Jason grunted when Richard bit his ear. “Don’t test me.” 

His hand snaked in between Richard’s head and the stone wall. It musn’t be comfortable pushed against cold coarse wall of stone. His hair soft in his palm, shone like the sea at night.

With one arm, he carried Richard as a toddler, and he weighted just as much. Jason could barely feel his weight against his strength. 

“Tell me if it hurts.” 

Richard’s snicker rang like a bell by his ear. He set on hand on his wounded shoulder, pulling back to look at his eyes. 

“You’re quite considerate.”

How could he not? The elf was so small, fragile as a leaf. He might be stronger than he looked but he was no match to Jason’s brawn. 

“I don’t break so easily.”

“No, I don’t think you do.”

He was the moon that lasted through the world apocalypse. And Jason was the blessed survivor. 

With rarity, their lives crashed. Two of the last. Lost to be found. Maybe Jason wasn’t the only one revived that night in the forest by the citadel. 

If lasting meant to meet someone along the way to keep him alive, then maybe this world wasn’t so bad.

“I want you.”

Jason laughed and pushed Richard’s head laid down his shoulder. His hair flowed down his skin, soft as water, glowed deep dark blue in the faded light of elven magic in the pond. He had heard elves were often attracted by hair of exceptional loveliness. Richard must have been divine among his kind. 

To test the raging storm, Richard snaked his hand down and touched him. Cold fingers gazed on Jason’s hot thing, roaming, teasing, setting cracking fire on inches of his skin. Jason could lift a bear yet under his touch, he feared his strength might tremble enough to drop the elf. 

“Richard...”

“You’re big. I want it, in me.”

Fuck. 

Jason wanted nothing more, nothing more, than to push that slim body laid out over the stone wall and ravish him. 

“You’re out of your head.” If this...if he got in, what would happen to Richard’s body? At best, he undoubtedly wouldn’t be able to sit on horse back for days, weeks even.

In the heat of the night, strange enough Jason was being the only wise one in the two. 

Richard blinked at him. Water had dampened the thick of his lashes. Nose red from the cold, he pushed his lips out and toyed with Jason’s will. 

“You don’t want me?”

“Don’t be ludicrous.” If could, Jason would have taken him, many times. “We’ve got days of journey ahead. You need to ride your horse to make it before the heavy snow.”

Jason was being both foolish and splendid tonight. It wasn’t an everyday thing that he could think with his head in a heat pit like this, and it also wasn’t an everyday thing any life can catch an elf soaring in sinful desire like this either. 

At last, the better of him took place and his hand roamed on nowhere more than open skin. He relieved them both at best as his will could excel, rubbing their hardness together and sensing the softness of Richard’s inner thighs against his palms. Lucky for both of them that Jason had been phenomenally plausible tonight lest they wouldn’t make it out of the forest when the snow formed. 

Richard laid his head on the wide of his shoulder as Jason felt the rise and fall of his chest against his heated skin. He laxed out in his hold, hair wet and stuck on his pale back. With a sniff Jason could smell everything of him, the herbal scent covered skin, the midnight fog on his hair, the berries on his lips. 

It wasn’t enough for him. No, it was only a drop that fill more into the cup that had already came to the brim. Jason imagined doing things to him, sinful things, but the hazy blues that stared at him, stopped him from going further. 

* * *

With fortunate, they finally made it to the West wood after two days snow. 

Under Richard’s instruction, Jason collected enough woods and built up a cottage big enough for the both of them. 

They set up a home by the foot of a mountain, laid in the hug of the wood and sat right by the edge of lake big enough to not be seen from the other side. Along the days of construction, they sat on soft grass by the open fire, watching stars and whispering stories of great old legends. Jason worked through night and only slept from sunrise until the end of high noon, wrapped up in bear fur tugging Richard down underneath his chin, feeling the soft grassy scent on his hair soothing his nostrils. 

Within a week, the cottage came up as Jason liked, a humble log hunkered in the frame of the wood by front, with pillars of grown oak, floor and doors of honey maple, and dust grey tiles of clay Richard had finely baked. It took another week for they to fully turn the cottage into a home. With the rest of the timber, Jason had the blessing to witness the art of elven handcraft within arm reach. They bent young branches and wired them around the front to make a gate. Richard tied his hair, stood on Jason’s shoulder hand-carved stories on wooden frames and ceiling. Jason split white pebbles found in the lake and made a path way. 

They found joy watching the pieces of the cottage coming together. And the first thing Jason did after the place was completely set, was tearing apart Richard’s wood dust covered tunic and took him on their empty kitchen bench with open view to the lake. And he could only get enough once the sun had set down the horizon and the elf had fallen asleep. 

He hunt by night, animals big enough for three meals a day and enough wild fruits to buy Richard’s happiness. And with odd, he found himself pray before pulling the last blade down the throbbing mountain lion. 

One night they sat entwined by the fireplace watching Richard threw the leftover seeds of dinner into the flame made Jason came up with an idea. The next hunting free days, he cleared enough ground out around their home, digging dirt until they soiled enough for cultivation. Among the luggaged they had carried away from the kingdome, with little surprise he found leather pouches of dried seeds and plant roots tug underneath the fold of Richard’s clothes.

Just like that, their life carried on. 

Jason came back from an early hunt, a buck, three stocks over the shoulder, and bags full of mushrooms, maizes and figs. Richard could make fine jam with the figs, and if he baked some breads in the day, tomorrow they could have a marvelous breakfast. He would stuff pillows with feathers of the stocks, and if the elf was feeling delightful, maybe he would join Jason for some grilled meat. 

He crossed their wooden gates, fingers gazed over thick vines of coral bougainvilleas looped on their fences and bestowed on the head of the gates. Stamping bare feet on the white planed pebbles littered in lines toward the cottage, he crossed bushes of parsley, rosemaries and thymes. Closer toward their house step, Richard was squatting down the dirt picking chickpeas and kales for tonight’s dinner. 

Jason came covering him from behind. He showed him the mushrooms he had found. Richard told him what he could made with them. They kissed. And before they cared to noticed, spring was coming as green sparrows huddles on the heart tree bloomed behind their wooden cottage.   
****

**End.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can also find me at [here](http://moonfox281.tumblr.com/) .

**Author's Note:**

> for anyone that wonder about Dick and Jason's size difference, [here](https://drive.google.com/file/d/17nxSTdtysu4UiflMLLTdf-Mrz8C6r_pm/view?usp=sharing)is how they look together.


End file.
